Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Tuesday named allrounder Shahid Afridi as Twenty20 captain until the ICC World Twenty20 2016 in India.
Misbah-ul-Haq has been retained as captain for ODIs and Tests until the 2015 World Cup.
Pakistan have three T20 matches lined-up in the upcoming series against Australia and New Zealand.
"In line with my policy of taking decisions democratically I consulted the Cricket Committee and my board members before announcing these decisions," PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan said.
"I wish both Afridi and Misbah very good luck in their upcoming assignments."
According to sources, the PCB chairman had taken all the Governing Board members into confidence over the decisions with the exception of Najam Sethi who is not in Pakistan.
For the last many months, the 34-year-old Afridi, in his comments to the media, had been expressing the desire to captain Pakistan once again.
“As T20 captain, Afridi will be in a position to put some pressure on Misbah who is already under pressure for not giving good results in the last series against Sri Lanka,” sources had told Dawn.
“If Misbah fails to regain his form against Australia and New Zealand, he may lose his captaincy to Afridi before the World Cup,” sources had said.
Afridi has a good captaincy record in ODI format, as he led national team to 18 wins in 34 matches he captained while losing 15, and one match ending in no result.
In T20 games however, Afridi’s captaincy record is not very impressive. In 19 T20 games he led the national team, Pakistan won only eight and lost 11.
It is also learnt that head coach Waqar Younis, who has not had a very cordial relationship with Afridi in the past, was not consulted by the chairman over the issue of T20 captaincy as the former fast bowler was scheduled to arrive in Pakistan from Australia late Monday night.
Pakistan will start their tour against Australia next month with a T20 scheduled on 5th October 2014 at Dubai Cricket Stadium, UAE.
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