Babar steps down as Pakistan white-ball captain
Babar Azam has resigned as Pakistan's white-ball cricket captain for a second time in 11 months, citing a need to lessen his workload and focus on improving his game.
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Babar Azam has resigned as Pakistan's white-ball cricket captain for a second time in 11 months, citing a need to lessen his workload and focus on improving his game.
Babar Azam, in a late night post on Tuesday, announced that he is stepping down from his role as the white-ball captain of the Pakistan cricket team. Babar Azam was earlier the all-format skipper of Pakistan. He stepped down previously as captain after Pakistan's poor show at the 2023 ODI World Cup in India. Fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi succeeded him as the T20I captain but was soon replaced by Babar, who was reappointed as the skipper in March 2024.
England's aggressive approach will help when they face spin-friendly conditions in Pakistan during their test series in October, the country's former bowler Stuart Broad has said.
The Ben Stokes-led England squad will arrive in Pakistan on Wednesday at a time when national Test skipper Shan Masood is under fire for a series of losses, including a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Bangladesh recently. England will play three Tests in Pakistan beginning October 7, with the first two games scheduled in Multan followed by a match in Rawalpindi. Masood found himself being targetted again on Monday during the pre-series media conference where a journalist asked him in a rather insulting manner why he wasn't quitting as captain. "You mentioned that you'll keep on playing as long as the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) gives you opportunities. Don't you have self-respect or dignity to step aside, considering the team's poor performance and continuous losses?" the journalist asked.
India consolidated their lead in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 points table with a dominating victory over Bangladesh in the second Test match in Kanpur on Tuesday. With the first three days of the match getting affected by rain and wet outfield, the Rohit Sharma-led side had a tough task of getting a result in the encounter. However, they bowled out Bangladesh twice and produced an aggressive batting performance to clinch a significant victory. Thanks to the win, India remain top of the table with a PCT of 74.24. Australia are second with 62.50 while Sri Lanka are third with a PCT of 55.56.
Former Pakistan cricketer Mudassar Nazar spoke on the match-fixing cloud in cricket, saying every time his team lost a game to India, people back home used to think the match was fixed. Match-fixing has haunted Pakistan more in this part of the 21st century, with players like Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt, Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif serving bans for their involvement in it. "I think if you look at Pakistan's team in the 90s, they were, talent-wise, as good as Australia in the 90s. But it was a sheer fear factor of losing the game, and I'm going to be a little bit controversial here. The controversy is behind match fixing. There was a lot of pressure on the Pakistan team because every time they lost a game, people thought the game was dubious, the game was fixed."
Pakistan Test captain Shan Masood was asked an odd question by a journalist in a press conference, which required Pakistan Cricket Board's (PCB) media manager to step in. The Pakistan team has been under intense scrutiny and has received criticism off late, particularly after a 2-0 Test series loss at home to Bangladesh. However, such was the question posed to Shan Masood, that PCB's media manager Sami ul Hasan decided that it was a step too far, and gave a firm warning to the journalist in question.
South African cricket coach Shukri Conrad on Monday named three spin bowlers in a 15-man squad to play two Tests in Bangladesh next month. The squad was announced on the same day that it was confirmed that South Africa will play Test matches in Dhaka and Chattogram. The decision was taken following a security assessment by a South African delegation in the country -- more than 200 people died in political protests in Bangladesh earlier this year. Left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy was recalled to the squad for the first time since March 2023. He will join fellow left-armer Keshav Maharaj and off-spinner Dane Piedt. Only three specialist seam bowlers -– Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger and Dane Paterson -– were selected, along with seam bowling all-rounder Wiaan Mulder.