Babar Azam recently stepped down as Pakistan’s white-ball captain after a horror performance in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024. He’s one of the best batters from Pakistan but failed to make an impact as the captain. His form with the bat is also going down and he was dropped from the test squad alongside Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was searching for a suitable replacement for Babar Azam as the white-ball captain, and wicket-keeper batter Mohammad Rizwan will probably be Pakistan’s new white-ball captain. Rizwan is a senior player and an integral part of Pakistan’s squad, especially in white-ball cricket.
PCB, white-ball head coach Garry Kirsten and the national selectors seem to agree on Rizwan’s name for leading Pakistan in ODIs and T20Is. He has experience of leading the Multan Sultans in the Pakistan Cricket League (PSL). Under Rizwan’s captaincy, Multan won the title in 2021 and has played all the finals of the tournament since then but failed to win any of them.
Babar Azam disappointed, high hopes from Rizwan
It’s not the first time that Babar has stepped down from captaincy. He was first appointed as the T20I captain of Pakistan back in 2019. Then he also took over in Tests and ODIs. However, after a poor performance in the Asia Cup and the World Cup in 2023, Babar stepped down as the captain.
Then before the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 which was held in the USA, Babar was again made the captain of the side. Pakistan had a forgettable outing in the tournament where they lost to the hosts USA and were knocked out after the group stage of the tournament.
Babar then resigned as the white-ball captain saying that he needed to lessen his workload and wanted to improve his game with full focus. Recently his batting form hasn’t been that great and he has received a lot of heat from the fans for that.
The ICC Champions Trophy 2025 will be held in Pakistan and they are scheduled to play Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa after the ongoing 3-match test series against England. Pakistan hasn’t had a lot of success in white-ball cricket since the final of the ICC T20 World Cup 2022. The management and board will have high hopes for Mohammad Rizwan to do well as the captain of the side in the limited-overs format.
