Even as India cruised through to the ICC World Cup final with victory over New Zealand Wednesday, the post-mortem of Pakistan’s failures reached its climax, with Babar Azam stepping down as captain from all three formats. However, he and the Pakistan Cricket Board appear to have different recollections of how the change of leadership occurred. They seem to be fighting to control the narrative. In his announcement on X, Azam indicated that the resignation was deliberate, saying: “It’s a difficult decision, but I feel it is a right time for this call.” By contrast, the PCB stated that the cricketer “has been relieved of captaincy in white-ball cricket’.
His sacking/stepping down aside, many fans still stand with Azam and his game. One such fan, whose X handle says she is from Bahawalpur, borrowed a meme from the film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1997) in which the small Sikh boy at the summer camp asks Anjali not to leave (‘Tussi jaa rahe ho, tussi na jao’). Many fans see themselves in that boy.
But Azam’s head is not the only one to roll. The PCB has sacked the entire coaching staff of the men’s team, including director Mickey Arthur. He had criticised the board during the competition with his suggestion that the PCB is “going to be blaming everybody, don’t worry, it’s just the way of the world”.
The captaincy will now be shared across formats. Top-order batter Shan Masood will take over as Test captain, starting with a three-match series in Australia in December. Fast bowler Shaheen Afridi will captain the T20 side, beginning with the tour of New Zealand in January 2024. The ODI captain has not been announced yet.
‘Tussi naa jao’
In his statement on X, the former captain also said: “I wholeheartedly and passionately aimed to maintain Pakistan’s pride and respect in the cricket world.” Indeed, while thanking the fans, he said that “reaching the number one spot in the white-ball format was a result of the collective efforts of players, coaches, and management.”
The fan base is split, though. There are those with a firm stance against Azam, with one fan calling him the “worst captain on the ICC tournaments for Pakistan in the history of Pakistan cricket”. Distinguishing between formats, some fans say that Azam’s principal challenge was ICC events — as opposed to bilateral series — and yet he failed to deliver. In November 2022, Pakistan lost the T20 World Cup final to England. One fan says that ultimately, Azam “has nothing to show for it”.
There are, of course, many who support the Pakistani cricketer. One of the common sentiments has been that Azam will nonetheless “remain our captain forever”. They wish he was still at the helm.
PCB faces questions
The decision to change the captaincy has come under scrutiny. The sports head at Dawn, Abdul Ghaffar, said on X that Azam is “among the most successful captains of Pakistan”. The statistics he shared show that the former captain has the best win-loss ratio of all Pakistan captains since 1980, while he also has the joint second-most wins, behind only Imran Khan.
This record has led former cricketers such as Matthew Hayden to call the decision into question. He was part of the Pakistan coaching team at the last two T20 World Cups, and he worries that the PCB have “potentially shot the gun a little bit early” by acting emotionally. Calling Azam a “natural leader”, Hayden suggests that “with Pakistan it’s never to do with the actual leadership of the group itself, it’s more just the overall game”. For the former Australian opener, the real problem for Pakistan has been the failure to cultivate a structure and environment conducive to high performance.
What next?
Voluntary resignation or harsh sacking, the poster boy of Pakistani cricket will now have to do his talking with the bat.
Much of the reaction to the change of leadership has focused on Azam’s future fortunes as a batter. Shaheen Afridi has conveyed his hopes of seeing the former captain “break more batting records”. Mohammad Hafeez, set to become the new director of Pakistani men’s cricket team, expressed the same hope, as did former fast bowler Wahab Riaz.
The PCB has acknowledged its hopes that Azam will return to form with the bat. Chairperson of the PCB Management Committee, Zaka Ashraf, said: “Now without his additional burden of the captaincy, he can focus more on his performances”. BBC commentator Aatif Nawaz suspects Pakistan will be hoping that Azam will return to form, much like Joe Root and Virat Kohli did following their stints as captains.
Turning to the new captains Masood and Afridi, Deputy Editor of Sports at Geo News Faizan Lakhani hopes they will be given more time to succeed than their predecessor. “If you keep changing the captains while ignoring the root cause, then nothing will work,” he warns.