Watch How Pakistan Cant Stop Playing Musical Chairs with Captains
The Pakistan cricket team has undergone yet another change in captaincy. Shaheen Shah Afridi has been announced as the new captain of the team in the ODI format. He replaced Mohammad Rizwan as the skipper for the series against South Africa.
The Pakistan cricket team has undergone yet another change in captaincy. Shaheen Shah Afridi has been announced as the new captain of the team in the ODI format. He replaced Mohammad Rizwan as the skipper for the series against South Africa.
The Pakistan Cricket team has seen a lot of changes in captaincy over the past few years. It has been a while since the team had a stable captain across all three formats of the game. Till 2023, the team had Babar Azam as the skipper for three formats, but since he stepped down as captain,
Now it seems that the skipper of the team is decided through the musical chairs game. The one who grabs the chair is announced as the new skipper of the team. This time, it is Shaheen Shah Afridi who replaces Mohammad Rizwan as the ODI captain of the team. With the latest announcement, it seems that the musical chairs game is on yet again.
1. Test Captaincy Changes
The only format where Pakistan has maintained stability in the captaincy is the Test format. Babar Azam led the team across this format for several years, but they were not able to make a big mark in this format. He started leading the team at the end of 2020 and continued till November 2023.
Babar Azam had a good record as a captain in the Test format. Although his stint as a skipper for just for three years, he led the team in 20 matches. Out of these, the team was able to secure 10 wins and lost just 6, with 4 of these games ending in a draw. Pakistan failed to secure series wins at home, which caused some challenges for Azam.
The team lost a home series against Australia by 0-1, as two games ended in a draw. They also had a whitewash against England in 2022 at home, which was a humiliating loss for the team. His last Test series as a captain was against Sri Lanka. Babar Azam was able to end his captaincy with a 2-0 series win.
After him, Shan Masood was announced as the new skipper of the team. His record in the Test format as a skipper has not been great. Masood has led the team across 13 games, out of which Pakistan has won 4 and ended up losing 9 of these games.
2. ODI Captaincy
In the ODI format, Pakistan has seen several captaincy changes over the last two years. Babar Azam was the last stable captain of the team, even in this format, leading them from 2020 to 2023. In his time as the captain of the team, he led them through 43 games and won 26 of them as a captain.
Following this, Babar Azam resigned from his captaincy post in November 2023. With Pakistan focusing on the T20I format, the new ODI skipper was announced by the team in October 2024. Replacing Babar Azam, his batting partner, Mohammad Rizwan was announced as the new skipper of the team.
However, even Rizwan was not able to match the level of captaincy done by Babar Azam. In the 20 games where he captained the line-up, the team lost 11 of them and were able to win only 9. It is also being reported that the PCB was not happy with the way in which Rizwan
Eventually, they came to a decision to announce a new skipper for this format. Shaheen Shah Afridi has now replaced Mohammad Rizwan as the ODI captain of the team. Fans now have high hopes with Afridi as the captain, hoping that he will stay till the 2027 World Cup.
3. T20I Captaincy Changes
The T20I format is known to be the one where Pakistan has made the most changes in the past few years. Babar Azam led the team in this format till November 2023, till he resigned as the captain. Following him, the team went towards Shaheen Shah Afridi in this format to lead the line-up.
But Afridi failed as a captain in the shortest format of the game. In the five matches where he captained the team, they were able to win just one of them. Due to this reason, another captaincy change was announced in March 2024. Babar Azam was reinstated by the team as a captain in white ball cricket.
He led the team in the T20 World Cup 2024, but they were still unable to perform well. This eventually led to Azam being dropped again as a captain, this time being replaced by Mohammad Rizwan. In the four games where he led the team, Pakistan ended up losing all of them.
Thus, the team went through another captaincy change, as they decided to announce Salman Ali Agha as the new captain. Agha has shown better records as a captain, allowing the team to win 17 out of 30 games where he has led them. This also includes leading the team to the Asia Cup 2025 finals.
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