Razzaq and Afridi have announced their availability for Tests. It is unclear whether Malik and Misbah would return to international cricket.

When Butt was promoted to vice captain his batting completely failed. Does he have the mental strength to perform in challenging conditions in England?

Afridi should be the captain. We know that the bowlers ought to be Asif, Aamer, Gul, Kaneria/Ajmal and Butt, U Akmal, Fawad, Afridi should be the batsmen. Now all that is needed is 3 more players- 1 keeper and 2 specialist batsmen.

I don’t think the PCB is interested in sorting out Mohd Yousuf. Younis Khan is also not being taken seriously. Pakistan is set to announce the captain and squads next week- I think we can take it as given that Yousuf and Younis will not be in the Test side.

LAHORE: With several nations experimenting with separate captains for different formats of the game, Pakistan could well follow suit. Prolific opener Salman Butt is on the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) radar to take over as new Test skipper. With Test series coming up against England and Australia, Pakistan are hunting for a skipper and Salman seems to be ahead of T20 captain Shahid Afridi. Salman has a few supporters too, including former captain Wasim Akram. After being humiliated in Australia (Pakistan lost the Test, ODI and T20 matches), Mohammad Yousuf was stripped of his captaincy. Afridi may have done a good job in the limited over format, but the all-rounder does not make the Test squad. Hence, Wasim feels Salman is the best option available.

Speaking to a sports channel on Wednesday, Wasim said: “Salman has performed really well in recent times. Afridi’s place in the Test squad is not fixed, so there is no question of him being made the skipper. In the absence of senior blokes like Mohammad Yousuf, Younus Khan and Shoaib Malik, Salman is the right choice for the job.” Pakistan cricket continues to grab the headlines for the wrong reasons and a leaked video of a recent PCB probe is now making news. Wasim is keeping safe distance from allegations of match fixing apparently made by former manager Intikhab Alam and ex-bowling coach Aaqib Javed.

Reports say Intikhab and Aaqib are suspecting Kamran Akmal’s involvement in match-fixing during the series against Australia in December-January. Staying clear of this, Wasim said he was ‘happy’ not to be part of the probe. “I have read it in the newspapers. I was also a part of this inquiry and thank God, I could not make it due to my television commitments. I could not attend any of their meetings.” The 43-year-old Wasim also felt there was a lot of mistrust between the players and the PCB. “One thing is for sure, players have lost faith in the Board and vice-versa. This was a very private inquiry. So I do not think next time anybody will trust the PCB. This is not on. The players have gone through a lot. They performed badly in Australia and then went through a lot of probes. But they did well to reach the T20 World Cup semi-finals.”

Salman Butt whose place in the playing XI was doubtful in the T20 WC, and he scored some good runs doesn’t mean he should suddenly be the captain of Pakistan team. Butt has no experience of captaincy nor, he is a captaincy material. He is “a keep” in the team because he is a Butt, and secondly, he is an erratic batsman, who has never been consistent except for these 4 matches he played in the T20 WC. His fielding is pathetic and he is not a bowler. So, when he doesn’t score he is a liability, a drag in the team. His English is slightly better than others (andhaon may kaana Raja) doesn’t guarantee him to represent Pakistan as a captain in any form of the game.

Changing the team captain for every single tour is a disaster recipe, especially since Afridi has agreed to play test matches and his average in terms of bowling, batting and even fielding is better than Salman Butt in test matches, there is no point in not making him captain. He lead the team well in the WC considering it has his first assignment and taking a demoralized team into the tournament without some of the senior players and key bowler Umar Gul, yet the team fought well and reached the semis and that was the best match of the tournament that Pakistan lost to Australia. Had they won that semifinal, it would have been easier for them to beat England. Anyways, no ifs and buts now but, the point is his captaincy was good and people can debate why he chose Ajmal to bowl the last over?

Afridi’ captained his side better than Michael Clarke of Australia. He must be made captain of the ODI as well as the test team. Ijaz Butt is a real Big PITA to the game of cricket and he should be fired without a second thought. He is ruining the game of cricket in Pakistan.

The Mughals (or Mongols) are descendants of Mongol rulers who were obviously Mongoloid (Genghis Khan). These people moved into Central Asia.

At the same time there was another race around Afghanistan and Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa, that of the Pathans. The Pathans go back centuries but it is thought they are descendants of Greek or some kind of European races. However the Pathans had some presence in North India as well.

I don’t know if you have heard of the famous Pashtun ruler, Sher Shah Suri? He was one of those warriors who were involved in a power struggle with the Mughals. However, both of these had a common enemy, that of the Punjabis who lived in that region (mostly Sikhs).

If you look into the Mughal history you will see many “Khans” invading Mughal lands and many Hindu rebellions and invasions.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is yet to decide on the ODI captaincy and Shahid Afridi is not the automatic choice to lead the national side in next month’s Asia Cup, chairman Ijaz Butt said on Saturday. Afridi, current Twenty20 captain, was being tipped to lead Pakistan in the June 15-25 Asia Cup in Sri Lanka but Ijaz said a decision would be taken on May 25. “We will announce the captain for the Asia Cup on May 25 after a meeting of the selection committee. Until now we have not decided or discussed any names as yet for the captaincy,” Ijaz said. Ijaz said the captaincy issue would be decided after taking into account report of the manager and coach on the performance of the team in the recent Twenty20 World Cup. He said the selectors had been told to finalise a list of 30 players for the Asia Cup and a full tour of England this summer. Sources said the 30 players would be asked to attend a conditioning camp before the final squads are announced for the Asia Cup and England tour. Chief selector Mohsin Khan also made it clear that nothing has been decided as yet on the captaincy or selection of players. “We will only meet on May 25 with the Board chairman to take these decisions,” he said. The governing board of the PCB has also been called for a meeting on May 23 in which the performance of team in the Twenty20 World Cup and other issues would be discussed. “The concept of having two separate captains or one captain for the coming one-day and Test matches will be discussed at this meeting,” one source said. Opener Salman Butt is being tipped to be named captain of the Test side.

Your arguments on Sehwag v Tendulkar are noted. I hope you can understand that I don’t want to be sucked into another long and very possibly unfruitful discussion about who is better and for what reason. I will be repeating many of the points I have already made in relation to this just like you have.

It is a matter of personal preference. If there was no Tendulkar, there would be no Sehwag. Sehwag himself says this and many critics and commentators say it.

Anyhow I hope you will pardon me for not participating in this particular discussion. You are aware that I consider Sehwag to be a destructive player and there is no doubt he has more match willing ability than Tendulkar.

Leadership can neither be taught nor achieved by expereince, it is something natural. Either you have it, or not, and the fact is Afridi is a natural leader period.

I am sure Afridi will ‘try’ to bring back Y & Y.

Razzaq, to me, is not as important for test team as are Y & Y and Afridi, but still I think he should be in our test squad for any eventuality.

It is strange that you mentioned that, the warrior races of pathans and persians ruled over India. I really get confused by that region– but I thought pathans are like the Afridis, which have been in that region before the invasions even took place. Mostly, there were Central Asian invasions, you could say some of them originated from Afghanistan, but would you say calling them pathans would be correct?

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/4188.html?class=1;template=results;type=allround;view=innings

Quite clearly, when he crosses a 100, he ends up closer to 200 than 110.

And, he makes 1s and 0s as well, but when he crosses 30, 40– he typically makes it very big.

Donald Bradman obviously relied more on hand-eye co-ordination than an orthodox technique and was a very instinctual player, who played attacking cricket.

I’d say, to a lesser extent, Sehwag is the same ‘kind’ of player, who plays even more attackingly, instinctually, and makes big scores.

On the other hand Tendulkar is (relatively) a lot more constrained player– and one reason is that, once you are playing completely technically, you avoid hitting the good balls, and you can’t dominate the bowlers so long as they bowl at the good spots.

Let me clarify why I think Sehwag is better than Tendulkar. To be honest I judge the players more on talent than effeciency. It is a, sort of, bias I have. But, even apart from that, Sehwag is an impact player and wins matches more than Tendulkar (at the test level).

Anyway, coming back to that thing of Sehwag’s hand-eye co-ordination, it is probably unparalleled in modern cricket and quite close to that of the Don. Consider the fact that, he can without an effecient or orthodox technique, demolish oppositions, make 200s, and 300s?

Whenever he crosses 50, he ends up making a 100, and most of the times he makes a 100, he ends up with somewhere around 200. If you just look at him at that point, when he is close to 200, it seems like he is disinterested, and that is when he gets out. What you don’t consider is that, how well the player see’s the ball– his high scores and ability to belt bowlers once set, suggests that he see’s the ball like a football once set.

When I see a player like Mohammad Hafeez, he is the exact opposite: His technique is complete, in fact quite clearly he has copied the exact same technique as that of Tendulkar, but the person makes 10 runs each time and never more than 25. How else can you explain that, but a complete lack of talent, in that the ball simply never gets bigger for him?

This is why I prefer a player like Fawad Alam to Mohammad Hafeez. Alam when he crosses 20 tends to see the ball bigger and his scores average higher when he crosses that pont. This is also why I have considered Shoaib Malik a very limited player, who can’t play in the team as a batsman.

So, for me, Kallis and Tendulkar are relatively more limited players than Sehwag.