Babar Azam captain: Babar Azam again becomes Pakistan’s Test captain, responsibility snatched from Shan Masood

Shan Masood’s captaincy tenure is counted among the most disappointing periods in the history of Pakistan cricket. Masood, who was made captain 3 years ago, led the team in 16 Test matches, but Pakistan lost 12 of these matches. In the history of Test cricket, no captain had been able to suffer 12 defeats in his first 16 Tests.

Babar Azam again becomes test captain
In the history of Pakistan, only former captain Misbah-ul-Haq lost more Test matches than him. Under the leadership of Misbah, Pakistan had suffered 19 defeats in 56 Tests. Not only this, Pakistan team has lost 7 consecutive tests, which is the joint longest losing streak in its test history. After this poor performance, the board decided to change the captaincy.

Pakistan team is making the same mistake: Javed
Pakistan’s high-performance director Aaqib Javed said that the team was repeating the same mistakes again and again and even winning matches was slipping away. Giving the example of South Africa’s Centurion Test, he said that there the opposition team added more than 50 runs for the last wicket, while the match was in the grip of Pakistan. The team also got easily disintegrated against West Indies in the Multan Test.

According to Aaqib Javed, the responsibility of the captain is not only to lead the team, but it is also his responsibility to finish the match, take DRS at the right time, maintain the over rate and adopt the right strategy after the toss. He believes that in these areas the team could not perform as per expectations.

However, despite his failure as captain, Shan Masood’s individual performance was good. After becoming the captain, his batting average was 34.06, which is better than the average of 28.51 before becoming the captain. During this period he also scored two centuries and seven half-centuries. Aaqib Javed made it clear that the decision to remove Masood from captaincy is separate from his personal performance.

Babar captained in 20 tests in 2023
Now Pakistan has again expressed confidence in Babar Azam. Babar captained Pakistan in 20 Test matches till 2023, out of which the team won 10 matches. Under his leadership, Pakistan defeated South Africa 2-0 in the home series and also won Test series in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Babar’s batting performance during captaincy was also excellent and his test average was above 50.

However, Babar’s captaincy tenure also included a historic 3-0 home defeat against England. Now they will face a big challenge because immediately after the West Indies tour, Pakistan has to play a three-Test series in England. After this, they will also have to face strong teams like New Zealand and Sri Lanka in the domestic season. In such a situation, Babar’s second captaincy is being considered very important for Pakistan cricket.