14 April,2010 01:59 PM IST | | Agencies
Pakistan great Mushtaq Mohammad believes controversial all-rounder Shahid Afridi is the right man to "lead from the front" as they prepare to defend their World Twenty20 title.
Afridi has long been one of the world's leading one-day players and his aggressive batting and leg-spin bowling were instrumental in Pakistan winning the World Twenty20 in England last year.
u00a0"Pakistan are a team in the making at the moment and Shahid Afridi is quite a force in the shorter form of cricket," Mushtaq told reporters at Lord's here on Monday.
"He won us the (Twenty20) World Cup here last summer. He is a very positive cricketer and we need somebody to lead Pakistan from the front." Afridi has been appointed to captain the side at this year's World Twenty in the West Indies, which starts later this month, after a chaotic period even by the standards of Pakistani cricket.
Pakistan will head to the Caribbean without former captains and star batsmen Younus Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, who were among a group of leading players, including Rana Naved and Shoaib Malik, banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) after their team's December-February tour of Australia ended without a single international win for the visitors.
And the 30-year-old Afridi was fined Rs 3 million by the PCB for ball-tampering in a one-day match against Australia in Perth in February, although he appealed yesterday saying it was unfair to punish him twice after he was hit with a two-game ban by the International Cricket Council.
"Pakistan have lost a lot of their key players," Mushtaq, one of Pakistan's greatest batsmen, said.
"But I hope they will come round and get the senior players to strengthen the team." Mushtaq, a former Pakistan captain and coach, was at Lord's for the launch of the sponsorship by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the ground's owners, of the Pakistan-Australia Test and Twenty20 series in England in July.
The neutral series are being staged in England because Pakistan has become a no-go area for the world's leading nations following last year's armed attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore.
