Pakistan cricketer Shahid Afridi is to be selected to retain captaincy for the national team for world cup 2011 after Pakistan cricket board chairman (PCB), Ijaz Butt held a half an hour discussion with the team management in New Zeland and Chief operating officer of cricket in Lahore. The mega event to be held jointly by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is going to start from February 19.

Shahid Afridi is very popular and has got much more experience even though Afridi does have competitors in his team, like Misbah-ul-Haq. Currently, he is leading the team in the ongoing series against the New Zealand. Shahid Afridi is leading in both forms shorter games of T20’s and 50 over matches. Misbah-ul-Haq has led the team successfully in the recent test series against New Zealand.

“Ijaz Butt himself is not in favour of having Afridi as captain and he wants more inclination towards Misbah-ul-Haq. Even Younis Khan wants Misbah as the skipper. But after getting all the feedbacks and suggestions the PCB chief knows that to change ODI captain at this stage it would be a risky and it would be better to continue with Afridi,” the source disclosed.

The source also added that Butt and some other board officials have lost their faith in keeping Afridi as skipper, as recently he disobeyed lot many board instructions.

However, as popular players like bowler Shoaib Akhtar, all-rounder Abdul Razzaq and Umar Gul are in favour of Afridi’s captain choice. All the major sponsors of Pakistan team have started their campaign with Shahid Afridi as Captain and also invested lot of money. The companies have already started lobbying with the government to ensure that Afridi will retain captaincy.