Shaheen Shah Afridi replaces Rizwan as Pakistan ODI captain
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Lahore (PTI): The Pakistan Cricket Board has appointed left arm pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi as their ODI captain, replacing Muhammad Rizwan ahead of the next month's ODI series against South Africa.
The PCB on Monday said Shaheen will lead the Pakistan side in the upcoming three-match ODI series against South Africa in Faisalabad from November 4-8.
The PCB said the decision was taken in a meeting in Islamabad which was attended by the national selectors, advisory board members and the national team’s white ball head coach, Mike Hesson.
Shaheen was also named the national T20 captain back in late 2023 but was sacked after just one series in New Zealand with Babar Azam returning to lead in the last World T20 Cup.
A reliable source said it was Hesson who had insisted on working with Salman Ali Agha and Shaheen as the white ball captains as he felt they had the potential to be successful long term captains and build their teams.
Shaheen has played 66 ODIs and 92 T20s for Pakistan besides also featuring in 32 Tests.
In the last two years the PCB has kept on changing the coaches and captains and no real reason was given for Rizwan's removal atthough he led Pakistan to ODI series wins in Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa before facing a string of poor results including in the ICC Champions Trophy.
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Ex-minister Ramanath Rai hits out at BJP leader Ashoka for ‘irresponsible’ comments on KC Venugopal
Mangaluru: Congress leader and former minister B Ramanath Rai slammed BJP leader R Ashoka for calling AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal an agent of the party high command, and asked if the general secretary and other office-bearers in the BJP were commission agents too.
Rai, who addressed a press meet at the Congress office in the city on Friday, expressed fury over the recent comments of the BJP leader that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was presenting himself in a shameless manner in public life. Ashoka, who is also Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, had said that the Congress government had ‘broken every previous record on corruption-related controversies’.
“Ashoka has spoken with sheer ignorance and displays his lack of maturity, as he often does while facing the media. KC Venugopal has been working at organization of the party and it is unbecoming of Ashoka to criticize Venugopal as he did,” Rai told reporters.
“Being in a responsible position, how acceptable is it for Ashoka to pass disrespectful, random comments about another leader who also holds a responsible position? If KC Venugopal is indeed an agent of the party high command, what should we consider BJP leaders to be? Are they brokers?” he asked
Commenting on Ashoka’s allegations of corruption in the Congress government in Karnataka, Rai pointed out, “The KSRTC land was sold to private parties when he (Ashoka) was transport minister. We can find several such cases across the state, which need to be probed.”
The former minister, however, refused to comment on the incident that occurred at Mangaluru airport during CM Siddaramaiah’s visit to the city recently.
Former mayors Ashraf and Shashidhar Hegde, Congress activists Vishwas Kumar Das, Subhodaya Alva, Shabeer, Baby Kundar, Padmanabha, Nazeer Bajal and Prem were present.
