Babar Azam appointed white ball captain of Pakistan

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) appointed Babar Azam as the captain of the national cricket team.

Lahore, 31 March 2024: 

By ;  Nawaz Gohar

The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced Babar Azam as the new white-ball captain of the Pakistan Men’s national Cricket team.

Babar has already led Pakistan in 43 ODIs and 71 T20Is between 2019 and 2023.

In a strategic move aimed at ensuring player well-being and peak performance, the board overhauled the white-ball leadership. Babar, renowned for his brilliant batting record in international cricket will take over the captaincy from Shaheen Shah Afridi.

While Shaheen Afridi has undeniably proven himself as a star fast bowler, leading Pakistan’s pace attack over the years, the board recognises the importance of rotation and rest to maintain his peak performance.

This decision aligns with board’s commitment to safeguarding the longevity of the players, especially fast bowlers given their injury timelines in the past two years.

Keeping in mind workload management, this decision is to ensure Pakistan main bowlers remain at the top of their game. The board does not want the national men’s team to run into injury crisis concerning the bowling resoucres as seen before the ICC T20 World Cup 2022,

where Shaheen had to bee closely looked after and ICC ODI Cricket World Cup 2023, where the team didn’t have the services of Naseem Shah.

Babar Azam announced his retirement from captaincy in all formats in November last year. After Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi was appointed as the T20 captain and Shan Masood as the Test team captain.

Babar Azam has represented Pakistan in 52 Tests, 117 ODIs and 109 T20Is. Along with this, he has led in 71 T20 matches including the T20 World Cup.

Babar Azam says that it is a pleasure to play under the leadership of Shaheen in the recent T20 series. He is still young and improving every day as a player and leader.

As captain I have always valued his advice and will continue to consult him for important decisions going forward. We should benefit from their strategic understanding of the game. Our common goal is to make this team the best team in the world.