An agitated Shahid Afridi accused selection committee member Mohammad Ilyas of orchestrating a campaign against him. “There is a lobby that works against me and Illyas is their head. He blames me for his son-in-law Imran Farhat being dropped from the team. He cares a damn about rest of the selections,” Afridi said in a television interview on Tuesday. Afridi said Ilyas a former Test player had been making life difficult for him and he had faced problems on and off the field. “I can’t continue to play in these circumstances. I didn’t retire because I was removed as captain. I am ready to play under anyone even a junior player I have done it in the past.
But I didn’t like the way they sacked me as captain without the Chairman even bothering to meet me or speak to me,” he said. Afridi noted that it was absolute nonsense that his statement on returning from the West Indies and his differences with Waqar Younis were made the ground for removing him as captain. “What indiscipline have I done. I gave a statement in which I took no names. Chief selector Mohsin Khan had openly blamed head coach Waqar Younis for creating problems in the team and yet the Chairman called him to Lahore and met him to sort out things. Why couldn’t I have been called to Lahore the same way? The thing is they didn’t respect me,” he said. Afridi said he had always given 100 percent on the field as captain and player and had not made the captaincy a prestige issue. “I did what I did because I don’t want to be treated like this board has treated other senior players. That is why I stepped down myself,” he said.
AFP adds: Former skipper Wasim Akram, under whom Afridi developed in the 1990s, called the development “sad” and said Pakistan had become a standing joke in cricket circles. “It is sad and will hurt Pakistan cricket badly,” Wasim told AFP. “Just last month Afridi was showered with praise after he took Pakistan to the World Cup 2011 semi-final, given cash awards and suddenly this happened. “Wherever I go people ask me what’s happening in Pakistan cricket. They laugh at us and I am left embarrassed,” he added. “I think even the best doctors do not have a treatment for Pakistan cricket.”
