Afridi's only sensible decision

Steve James of the Daily Telegraph doesn't rate Shahid Afridi highly as a Test cricketer, and welcomes the Pakistan captain's decision to end his Test career.

His Test career is over. Injured side or not, he will surely not play next week at Leeds and, quite frankly, Test cricket will be none the poorer for his absence. His brainless batting besmirched this match; his astonishing lack of leadership mocked some of his team-mates’ best efforts.

He was a curious choice as captain anyway; cricketers who pirouette deliberately on a length to scuff up a pitch and bite cricket balls do not generally get to captain their country. But then Afridi joins a list of Pakistan captains that is at once both a gallery of rogues and a roll call of truly great cricketers. It sums up Pakistan’s bewildering contradiction; its brilliance mixed with its villainy.