I am under no pressure to lose captaincy: Younis

Younis Khan on Tuesday said he was under no pressure of losing his captaincy after the recent series defeat in Sri Lanka nor does he feel threatened by the elevation of Shahid Afridi as his vice-captain for the Champions Trophy.

"I have never run after the captaincy. It was offered to me number of times in the past and I didn't accept it because of various reasons. This time I accepted the captaincy because I felt I could do something good for the team," Younis said.

"But the captaincy has never been a big issue for me and my job is only to try to get the best performances out of the team and ensure they give good results," he said.

The media has carried reports in last few days that the appointment of Afridi as vice-captain has come about as the Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Ejaz Butt is not very happy with Younis's performance as captain.

The media also speculated that Butt might soon promote Afridi as the new captain for one-day matches as well. But Younis said he was not bothered by such reports.

"The way cricket is run in Pakistan is funny and a quiz. When we won the T20 World Cup everyone was praising my captaincy. We had one bad series in Sri Lanka and the guns are turned towards me."

Younis also said he had no issues at all at Afridi being promoted as vice-captain.

"This is not a threat for me at all. Because we have a good equation and we worked closely in the T20 World Cup. As far as the appointment of vice-captain or team officials is concerned I have no issues with the board."

Younis also said he wanted the national conditioning camp to be held in two phases before the Champions Trophy.

"The first phase will be held from September one to four and we will focus purely on physical training. We will then take a break and then have another four to five days training camp purely for batting and bowling before we leave on Sept 17 from Karachi for South Africa," he said

Younis said because of the holy month of Ramzan the schedule of the conditioning camps had to be changed as the players needed a break and to spend time with their families.

"But I will definitely ask the Board to have these camps at small centres and not at Lahore and Karachi where they are too many distractions for the players."

He also said the players would be having counseling sessions with a sports psychologist in these camps.