Gilchrist's Captaincy made the difference, says Afridi!

The Pakistani all rounder and dashing batsmen Shahid Afridi has said that the change in Hyderbad's Decccan Chargers has made a big difference this year.

Last year, DC was positioned 7th out of the 8 positions and Royal Challengers ended at 8th. These two teams clashed for the 2009 title in South Africa on May 24th.

DC beat RC by 6 runs in the last over thriller. The match was in the hands of Bangalore until Symonds took 2 wickets in an over to turn the match towards Hyderabad.

Last year, Afridi made a controversial comment about change in the captaincy after DC lost most of the games. He said, Gilly should take over the captaincy from VVS Laxman. This created a panic in the team but he latter clarified that the statement was not made to insult Laxman. He said, Laxman is the best test player but his captaincy was not aggressive for T20 format.

"People misunderstood what I wanted to say. I never meant any disrespect to Laxman who is a top Test player. But I just felt that his captaincy was not aggressive enough for T20 cricket. Laxman's captaincy was one of the reasons for the team not doing well in the first year. One can see the difference that Gilchrist brought to the team as captain."

He also appreciated Gilchrist's captaincy and said that he is one of the best captains he has seen.

"Gilchrist is one of the best captains I have seen. He leads from the front. He is strong enough to take sensible and aggressive decisions in pressure situations and his backing of the younger players was very impressive. This was more or less the same team that played last year. But the captaincy made a big difference to the team."

People can talk several things after the completion of an activitiy, but they keep mum until it happens. In this case, Afridi has said about switching over captaincy a year ago and has proved that he is right about it!