Babar Azam, the fan-made king, who himself has requested his fans not to go this far and call him “The King”.
However, since Babar Azam is the King for them, the Pakistan Cricket Board has often succumbed to the pressure of the masses. There have been several highs and lows in his own career, particularly in his batting performances and captaincy results.
He was appointed captain in 2019 after Sarfaraz Ahmed’s removal following a record-breaking stint, and then he experienced several highs and lows until 2023, when he “resigned” as captain after the World Cup.
He got Pakistan their first win in an ICC tournament against India, and their 3rd T20 World Cup final. However, after some similar sort of failures in crucial knockout matches, and then a slump in the team’s performance overall.
I would like to put on a disclaimer here to avoid getting crucified by the fan club, of course, the one at fault here is not Babar Azam; he is not asking for all this, but the system that puts him in this position, again and again.
However, a part of the fault goes to Babar as well; he could’ve declined the captaincy offer when he got it for the second time, but even other than that, the selections are not Babar’s call.
2023 Captaincy Change
Pakistan’s ODI team was the number 1 in the ICC rankings earlier in the year 2023; however, then came the disastrous and hybrid Asia Cup and the World Cup in India, after which Babar Azam “resigned” from captaincy in all formats.
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After that, PCB announced Shan Masood as the Test captain and Shaheen Afridi as the T20I captain (not the white-ball captain as mistakenly announced earlier). Shan’s first assignment was the Test series in Australia, which went decently.
Then came Shaheen’s first and eventually his only assignment as captain, a 5-match series in New Zealand. After which, the chairman of PCB changed, in came the current regime, and removed Mohammad Hafeez as the Team Director after two series, and Shaheen Afridi as the T20I captain after only one series.
According to some reports, PCB even stated with Shaheen’s name, which he did not issue.
Babar Azam was brought back as the white-ball captain on 31st March 2024. This change was not beneficial for either Babar or Shaheen, and for Pakistan Cricket as a whole.
During the period between his first resignation and reappointment, Babar captained Peshawar Zalmi 11 times, with 6 wins and 5 losses. This is not such a record that would force you to change your decision.
Domestic Cricket
According to some media reports, before Pakistan’s Test tour of South Africa, both Shaheen Afridi and Babar Azam were told to play the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy to prepare, or they would be dropped.
Now, you would think in a mature cricketing structure, a fast bowler would maybe be excused from this due to workload and the injury-prone nature of his job.
However, the opposite happened; neither of them played the First-Class tournament, and Shaheen Afridi was dropped, but Babar Azam went on to play both Tests.
Again, Babar did not ask the selectors to do this, but he was the beneficiary of this system, which would later hurt him in the long run.
This two-faced system allows players like Babar here to avoid taking hard but necessary steps, instead of incentivizing the hard steps, like going back for some time and grinding in the First-Class system.
Babar Azam has not played a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match (let alone a Hanif Mohammad Trophy fixture) in the last 6 years!
2025 T20I Comeback
After being dropped from the shortest format, Babar Azam made his comeback in the series against South Africa in just a few months. However, the problem here was that in those months, Babar Azam did not play a single T20 game and not just that, he did not even play domestic cricket when he got the time.
Either he played for Pakistan in other formats, or just practiced at the National Cricket Academy instead of domestic cricket. When he was dropped, coach Hesson said that the reason and his weakness was batting against spinners.
All it took was a few practice matches in the LCCA Ground with cricketers available to the NCA to improve that, and not even actual match practice in domestic cricket when two red-ball tournaments took place one by one.
Conclusion
With other options readily available for the open slot, Babar Azam was brought back without the “expected” domestic grind. The only fault of Babar himself in this is that he did not play the Hanif Mohammad Trophy or the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy; the nonsense of bringing him back without any match practice is on the selectors and Coach Hesson.
