Shaheen Afridi is definitely the future Pakistan captain: Darren Gough

Former England cricketer Darren Gough has praised Pakistan’s speedster Shaheen Afridi, describing him as extremely skilled and dynamic. He said that the pacer has a great drive for achieving success, and holds the ability to captain the side in the future as well.

This year in the Pakistan Super League, Shaheen demonstrated his skills as a player and as a leader. He was the season’s highest wicket-taker and also guided the franchise to its first-ever PSL title in seven years. Since his debut in 2018, Shaheen has become a prominent member of the national squad across all formats. The fierce speedster has taken 95, 59, and 47 wickets in 24 Tests, 30 ODIs, and 40 T20Is, respectively.

Gough praised Shaheen for the captaincy skills that he displayed during his stint with the Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) and backed him to become the national team’s captain in the future. “Shaheen is a terrific talent, he is hungry for success, he is very energetic, he enjoyed being captain of the Qalandars, I think he led them very well with loads of enthusiasm, he is definitely the future Pakistan captain,” Gough told Cricket Pakistan.

Darren Gough is pretty excited for the Lahore Qalandars’ PDP trials

Gough, the current Managing Director of the Yorkshire Cricket Club, is in Pakistan for the Lahore Qalandars’ Player Development Program’s (PDP) trials. The 51-year-old said that he is looking forward to returning to Pakistan after such a long time, emphasizing the importance of Yorkshire’s association with Qalandars and how the club is battling with the aftermath of Azeem Rafiq’s racism controversy, among other things.

“I was really excited about it, soon as we signed the partnership with Lahore Qalandars a few months ago, I always said from the very off, I can’t wait to come back to Pakistan, I had some great memories here of training and playing. I’ve got the opportunity to experience out here in Lahore how they go about selecting some of the talents from the program; then they would have the opportunity to play in the PSL, that’s what we want to do at Yorkshire,” he added.

Shaheen had joined the Middlesex side for the County Championship and put out his best in the Test format. The youngster left his team recently to travel back home and spend some time with his family before getting started with the national duties. Pakistan will play West Indies in a three-match ODI series starting June 8, and then Shaheen will head back to England to represent Middlesex in the T20 Blast.