Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has appointed middle-order batsman Younis Khan as the new captain of nation's cricket team. The board decided to replace Shoaib Malik with Younis Khan after the disastrous performance of the Pakistan team in last week's one-day series against Sri Lanka. While making the announcement of the appointment of the new captain, PCB chairman Ijaz Butt informed that Younis will hold the responsibility of the team for an indefinite period.

 

The PCB chairman said that the move was executed after Malik agreed to step down as Pakistan captain. Ijaz Butt called for Younis and offered the captaincy at an emergency meeting at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Younis Khan had earlier turned down similar offers in 2006 and again in 2007.  Under the leadership of Shoaib Malik, Pakistan lost back-to-back matches against Sri Lanka in Karachi and Lahore.

 

Although the Pakistan team won the opening match convincingly, but in the next two games they were badly beaten by Sri Lanka. Pakistan lost the two matches by 129 runs and 234 runs which was team's worst defeat in one-day history. Shoaib Malik became the captain of Pakistan after the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies where the team could not cross the first round.

 

Commenting on Younis Khan, Ijaz Butt said that Younis has been made the captain of the side in the hope that he would bring an improvement in its performance. According to him, Younis is one of the most experienced cricketers in Pakistan and automatically qualify for the job of captaining the side. He scored 4816 runs from 58 Tests at 49.14 with 15 hundreds. In ODIs, he has accumulated about 5306 runs. He will now lead the Pakistan team in a two-match Test series against Sri Lanka next month.