Overview
- Shaheen Shah Afridi will lead Pakistan in three home ODIs against South Africa in Faisalabad on November 4, 6 and 8.
- The PCB statement announcing the switch did not cite a reason and did not mention Mohammad Rizwan by name.
- The appointment was agreed by the selection committee with white-ball head coach Mike Hesson and high-performance director Aqib Javed present.
- It is Pakistan’s third ODI captaincy change in 12 months, extending a run of leadership instability across formats.
- Rizwan went 9–11 in 20 ODIs as captain after early series wins in Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, while Afridi has 131 wickets in 66 ODIs and previously had a brief T20I captaincy stint; public claims about non-cricket motives remain unverified.