Afridi stays mum over Sarfaraz's exclusion

Pakistan T20 captain Shahid Afridi feels people who are questioning the decision to rest wicketkeeper Sarfaraz Ahmed for the T20 series in Sri lanka have a narrow vision.“What can I say to such people who say that Sarfaraz was not played because of some conspiracy against him. I would just say they all have a ‘Choti Soch’,” Afridi said on Wednesday.

He was in particular referring to former captain and senior batsman Muhammad Yousuf, who had claimed that Sarfaraz was not played because Afridi saw him as a threat to his captaincy in the T20 format.Chief selector Haroon Rasheed also said on Wednesday that since Sarfaraz was the future of Pakistan cricket and they were around a dozen T20 matches before the World Cup next year, they were thinking about appointing him captain for a few matches.

Afridi said he had also read the news and called up the chief selector. “I asked him about his statement about the captaincy and he explained he was referring to making Sarfaraz captain for the Pakistan A team series,” he said.The wicketkeeper’s exclusion from the T20 series caused a big uproar in Pakistan cricket circles forcing the chairman of the cricket board and chief selector to state they would talk to Afridi and head coach Waqar Younis to find out the reasons for not playing Sarfaraz in the just concluded series.