Rashid, Amir, others slam ‘hasty’ decision to remove Rizwan as captain

KARACHI: Former wicket keeper batsman Rashid Latif, pacer Mohammad Amir and other cricket analysts have taken the Pakistan cricket authority to task for replacing Mohammad Rizwan with Shaheen Shah Afridi as one day international (ODI) captain.

So, now Pakistan have three different captains in three cricket formats — Shaheen in ODI, Salman Agha in T20I and Shan Masood in Test. Rashid said the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has changed 10 skippers in less than two years under three managements. He believed that it was not by chance but by design, using “divide and rule” policy as a strategy to exploit cricketers. “Divide and rule” policy is a political strategy to gain and maintain power by creating and exploiting divisions within a population, such as religious, ethnic, cricket teams or class differences,” he wrote in a post on his X account. Meanwhile, a video of Rashid is also circulating on social media, wherein he claimed that Rizwan was removed from the captaincy because he spoke openly for Palestine and coach Mike Hesson didn’t like the culture he brought to the dressing room.

He added Pakistan was the only country that could not even produce a decent captain. Amir lambasted the team management for changing the captains after every few months on the basis of performance in a series. They could have made Shaheen vice captain, he said, adding that it was unfair to Rizwan. “Rizwan was not a bad choice as a captain for ODI. His captaincy was not bad. He’s a smart captain. “Don’t you forget that he won the series in Australia and South Africa which even big names failed to do. I think the decision has been taken in haste,” he said in a video statement on his Facebook page. Furthermore, he said, he believed and had been saying that, Rizwan and Babar were not at all bad players. They could even be featured in T20I, given that they played with “the intent”, he maintained.

A cricket analyst Dr Nauman Niaz said if failure was the measure, then Shaan captained Pakistan to 9 defeats in 13 Tests. “He still sits unperturbed, seemingly unaffected by the winds that buffet others,” he wrote on his X account. In 2024-25, Salman played 6 T20Is, scored just 50 runs at an average of 10.00, with a strike rate best described as nostalgic, 79.36, he added. Web Desk