Former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) president Zaka Ashrafafter a month of being removed from his position, he came out to explain the real reason behind Babar Azam’s decision to leave the captaincy in the first place.
The star batsman, before being reappointed to the leadership position last week, had resigned from the captaincy in November 2023 in light of Pakistan’s humiliating exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup In India.
The Men in Green had finished fifth in the points table and had failed to reach the round of 16 for the third consecutive edition.
In what was Babar Azam’s first time captaining his national team in the 50-over World Cup, Pakistan lost 5 of their 9 league matches and recorded victory on 4 occasions.
They had also lost matches against their arch rivals Afghanistan and India, but had they won just 2 more matches they could have found themselves in the semi-finals, possibly against the host nation.
Weeks after leaving the team, Babar took to the social media platform Instagram and wrote a lengthy resignation.
In light of Babar Azam’s decision, the PCB appointed Shan Masood as Test captain for Pakistan’s three-match Test series in Australia and handed over the T20I captaincy to Shaheen Afridi. While Masood, in his first assignment, suffered a 3-0 whitewash, Afridi, in his first big series as captain, lost the 5-match T20 series in New Zealand 4-1.
His performance in the shortest format was extremely alarming and in this regard, new PCB boss Mohsin Naqvi sacked Shaheen from the T20 captaincy and reappointed Babar as the leader of the white-ball formats.
What did Zaka Ashraf say about Babar Azam’s resignation in November 2023?
While speaking exclusively to media journalists in Lahore, Zaka Ashraf, who was the PCB chief at the time of Babar Azam’s resignation, revealed some shocking details.
Ashraf claimed that he had asked Babar to continue captaining Pakistan in the red-ball format, but the board wanted to see someone else lead the white-ball teams.
But the star batsman took that to his ego and clarified that if he is dropped from ODIs and T20Is, he himself will quit all formats.
Zaka Ashraf also revealed that Babar Azam was under leadership pressure and it negatively affected his batting performance.
“I offered to retain Babar Azam as captain for red-ball cricket, but we wanted to appoint a new captain for white-ball cricket. He responded by stating that if he were replaced as captain in one format, he would prefer to give up captaincy in all formats” .
“Accordingly, I suggested to him that he should focus on playing as a member of the Pakistan team as it was clear that he was finding it difficult to cope with the pressure of captaincy.” – Ashraf told reporters in Lahore.
Babar Azam will resume captaincy for the series against New Zealand
Meanwhile, Babar Azam will resume captaincy of the Pakistan team when New Zealand visits the country for a five-match T20I series. After that, Pakistan will fly to Ireland for a 3-match T20I series and then to England for a 4-match series in the same format.