Cricket: Pakistan weigh captaincy options for World Cup

Shahid Afridi. Photo / Paul Taylor

The World Cup starts on February 19 and Pakistan have not confirmed who will captain their campaign.

A big drama? No problem, says coach Waqar Younis.

Shahid Afridi is leading Pakistan's ODI series against New Zealand; Misbah-ul-Haq, who skippered the test team to their 1-0 series win last month, is his only rival.

Pakistan's board president, the colourful Ijaz Butt, is due in Napier for today's ODI and to talk to the key figures. In meetings before the New Zealand tour, Butt is understood to have told Afridi he needed to interact better with his players.

Butt will return home later this week with the identity of the World Cup leader due to be revealed in the next couple of days.

Of the two candidates, Afridi is the more outwardly demonstrative. An explosive batsman, whose 65 off 25 balls steered Pakistan to their series-levelling win in Christchurch on Saturday night, Afridi has led Pakistan in 18 of his 309 ODIs.

He has won seven and lost 10 of them, with one no-result, but his own batting average is far superior - 35.75 vs 23.93 - when he has been leading the side.

Misbah has captained his country just once in an ODI, his unbeaten 70 helping set up an eight-wicket win over India, chasing down more than 300 in Karachi in 2008.

Misbah's demeanour is more phlegmatic, which worked well in the test series, where his own personal form was outstanding. That should certainly have helped his case.

The pot has been stirred back home by former players, including Inzamam-ul-Haq, who claims factions are forming behind the two candidates among the players in New Zealand.

There are suggestions some players are unhappy that Afridi has made too-frank assessments of poor Pakistani performances. His statements to the International Cricket Council in relation to the spot-fixing charges against three Pakistani players are thought not to have won new friends.

Strife in a Pakistani camp? What's new, you might think. But Waqar is relaxed.

"We have heaps of talent in Pakistan and they all want to play for Pakistan," he said yesterday. "It's not really a matter of who is going to be captain. The key thing is their response to the occasion.

"We don't have a captain but we know we are a good unit and if we put it right [on the park] it doesn't really matter who is captain."

The bottom line is that the man regarded as best able to gel Pakistan's undoubted talents, inspire them and get them working towards a common goal is the obvious candidate.