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Shoaib malik has been appointed for the sole T20 match against Australia. earlier he was sacked by the PCB for poor leadership qualities but again as no choice left he has been appointed as captain. Shahid Afridi who is the t20 captain of Pakistan has been ban by ICC for tempering the ball.

Afridi, Pakistan’s stand-in captain, was caught by television cameras chewing the ball during Pakistan’s fifth and final One-day International against Australia at the WACA on Sunday night.

“Shoaib Malik has been appointed as captain for the Twenty-20 against Australia in the absence of Shahid Afridi,” PCB announced in a brief statement on Monday. Just a year ago, Malik was sacked as Pakistan captain after leading his team to an embarrassingly one-sided ODI series defeat against Sri Lanka on home soil last January.

At that time, Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam and manager Yawar Saeed described Malik as a ‘loner’ and recommended that he should be replaced with Younis Khan as captain.Younis did succeed Malik as captain but after leading Pakistan to a memorable title-winning triumph in the ICC World Twenty20 championship in England last summer, he decided against carrying on and stepped down as skipper last November. He was replaced by Yousuf, who led Pakistan on the twin tour of New Zealand and Australia.

While Pakistan have been pondering about having a new captain following Mohammad Yousuf’s poor captaincy in Australia, Malik was nowhere in the picture as far as the list of possible candidates was concerned.

However, with Yousuf and Younis not in the Twenty20 squad and Afridi ineligible for the tour-ending MCG clash against the Aussies, the PCB didn’t have many players to choose from.According to insiders in the Pakistan team, the name of Test vice-captain Kamran Akmal was considered but the fumbling glovesman was overlooked because of his poor showing on the tour of Australia.

The option of appointing opening batsman Salman Butt as captain was also discussed. Even Mohammad Asif, the fast bowler who briefly served as Pakistan’s vice-captain two years ago, got a mention but in the end the PCB think-tank voted in favour of Malik.

Ironically, Malik is quite a controversial figure within his team these days.There has been a whispering campaign in the national cricket circles suggesting that Malik could be the man leading a lobby in the Pakistan team that plotted the downfall of Yousuf in Australia. In fact, sources close to Yousuf claimed that the senior batsman suspects that some of the players including Malik deliberately under-performed in Australia where Pakistan lost the Test series 3-0 and the one-day series 5-0.

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Shahid Afridi another 50 mange Pakistan to repeat the T20 performance against Sri Lanka. Afridi scored third consecutive half century to contribute a defendable total of 172. Pakistan disciplined attack did not provide any room to Sri Lankan batsman to even kiss the total. A good knocks from Imran Nazir, Omer Akmal and Abdurrazaq gave confidence to the team to defend the total easily. The series although was a nightmare in which Pakistan lost test and one day series but last two ODI and maiden T20 victory give Pakistan cricket a relief.

A sell-out crowd of 35,000 at the overflowing Premadasa stadium watched the first T20 match between the two teams since the World Twenty20 final in England in June, when Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by eight wickets.

The result was the same as seamer Rana Naved and off-spinner Saeed Ajmal picked up three wickets each to stun the hosts.

Sri Lanka lost wickets at regular intervals with skipper Kumar Sangakkara the only batsman to offer resistance against the fired-up Pakistanis with 38 off 31 balls.

Afridi, who was man of the match in both the semi-final and final at the Worlds, once again won the award as Pakistan ended an otherwise dismal tour of Sri Lanka on a winning note.

Pakistan had lost the preceding Test series 2-0 and conceded the one-dayers by a 2-3 margin during the six-week tour.

Afridi hit two sixes and four boundaries after taking over the Twenty20 team from Test and one-day skipper Younus Khan, who has retired from the shortest format of the game.

“I told the boys before the match that we were world champions and so we should go out there and play like champions,” the 29-year-old Afridi said.

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Shahid Khan Afridi father is delighted on Pakistan victory and especially his son performance. He said he gave a present on father day, which is the best sofar i have received from him in my life. He is proud of his son and Pakistani team. Shahid Afridi showed an extra ordinary performance in this tournament. He got two consecutive man of the match award in semi final and final of this world cup respectively.

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