Monday, February 22, 2010

No ambition for long term captaincy

Monday, February 22, 2010
Cricket Updates


All-rounder Shoaib Malik has made it clear he does not harbor any ambitions of long term captaincy.

"I enjoyed leading the team in these last three T20 matches inShahid Afridi's absence but it is better he gets back to captaining the side in this format of the game," Malik said on returning home from Dubai.

Malik, who remained captain between 2007 and 2009 before being replaced byYounus Khan last year, said Afridi was a better choice to lead the team.

But he declined to comment when asked what would be his stance if he was pressed by the board to continue as captain in the T20 World Cup this year.

Malik also admitted that the Pakistan team had been under lot of pressure in recent matches and the win over England on Saturday had released a lot of that pressure.

"There is no doubt that when you are constantly losing matches you tend to get into a losing mentality and come under pressure. It happens to every international sportsmen and it happened to us as well.

"But now that we have finally broken this losing streak hopefully this would be a fresh start for us and will allow us to defend our title successfully in the T20 World Cup," he said.

Pakistan were whitewashed in the Test and one-day series in Australia and also lost their lone T20 international to the Australians and then the first match against England in Dubai.

Malik praised Abdul Razzaq for playing a master blaster knock to guide Pakistan home in the second match and pointed out that he had proven he was an experienced and capable performer.

"I think he played extremely well under pressure and took the game away from the English bowlers he left them helpless with his sound and well executed shots."

Malik also made it clear that the players were keen to start doing well again to bring smiles back on the face of the Pakistani people.

"We all know how disappointed the people were with our recent performances but hopefully now we can give them something to smile about," he added.


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