Pakistan white-ball skipper Babar Azam has reportedly lost the trust and popularity among Pakistan cricket team players.
Speaking at ARY News show Sports Room, journalist Shahid Hashmi revealed that an individual related to the Pakistan team has told him that the star batter was no longer popular in the team players.
“When Pakistan lost the second game of the ODI World Cup 2023 in Chennai, a person related to the board and team told me that Babar has lost popularity in the team,” he claimed.
Without disclosing the identity of the individual, Hashmi said that the person had told him that Babar Azam was not a good captain and lacked communication skills.
“The board [PCB] removed Babar from captaincy when these things came to surface. Zaka Ashraf might have sacked him from captaincy following such reports,” he added.
The sports journalist was of the view that pace bowler Shaheen Afridi should have been given time once he was made captain of the white-ball team of Pakistan.
Read more: ‘Babar Azam should have played under Shaheen Afridi’
“When you make someone captain, you do not remove him only after one series. Shaheen Afridi was sacked when new PCB chairman was appointed. We cannot discuss the reason why Shaheen Afridi was removed from captaincy,” he added.
It is pertinent to mention that Afridi took over the captaincy of the T20I team after Babar Azam resigned from his role as all-format captain following the national team’s horror run in the ODI World Cup in India last year.
However, Shaheen Afridi’s tenure as the captain of the Pakistan national team was short-lived as he led the team in only one series at the international level — a 4-1 defeat to New Zealand in a T20I series.
PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi handed over the captaincy of the white-ball teams to Babar Azam before the T20 World Cup 2024.
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