There is no doubt that Babar Azam’s leadership abilities were debatable and his on-field decisions at some of the most important moments cost the Pakistan team very dearly, but more expensive than Babar were the decisions of these PCB chiefs and the prime ministers who appointed them. which Babur had to climb.
As in every field of life, cricket has been a long-standing characteristic of Pakistan to find the remedy for the failure of the system in dismissals, resignations and resignations of individuals. The recent Board Management Committee, though itself running the lifeline on an ad hoc basis, has also recognized its ultimate right to long-term decision-making.
As expected, the debris of the recent failed World Cup adventure has also fallen on the head of another captain, and the PCB has washed its hands of all its shortcomings. After leading the national team for four years, Babar Azam has finally resigned and a ‘new’ leadership has been brought in his place.
Looking back on Babar’s four-year tenure, the most striking fact emerges is that he was Pakistan’s second most successful captain in the T20 format, after Sarfraz Ahmed, but his victories were more gratifying than Sarfaraz’s. His schedule was quite long and relatively tough.
Babar Azam’s leadership
The pinnacle of Babar Azam’s leadership came when he triumphed over India in the 2021 T20 World Cup and it was the first time in the 46-year history of ICC events that Pakistan had defeated arch-rivals in a global competition gave
A year later, Babar Azam’s leadership saw further growth in the T20 World Cup held in Australia when his team reached the final against England and finished as runners-up of the event. Although Pakistan came very close to victory in this final match as well, Shaheen Afridi could not bowl his last two overs due to injury and missed out on lifting the Babar Trophy.
But Babar Azam’s streak of success in the shorter format continued and by successively defeating South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, he took Pakistan to the top spot in the ICC ODI rankings.
Although Babar Azam did not have the same success in Test cricket, it was also under his leadership that Pakistan swept South Africa for the first time in the home series and recently, on the tour of Sri Lanka, an aggressive approach called ‘The Pakistan Way’ was adopted. Thanks to another clean sweep amount.
But the other side of the picture is that despite leading Pakistan to three Asia Cups, two T20 World Cups and the recent ODI World Cup, Babar Azam failed to win any major titles. The most prominent aspect of his criticism was that he could not keep his nerve under pressure and made key mistakes in decision making.
When the last World Test Championship cycle started, Pakistan were being touted as favorites for the final as they did not face any tough tour as per the schedule. While easy opponents like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were available away from home, the home conditions were conducive to facing toughers like Australia, New Zealand and England.
It had been two decades since Pakistan had won a Test match on Australian soil and it was expected that Pakistan would prove to be a tough opponent for Australia on home grounds. But Babar Azam’s decision-making continued to fail at important moments and due to defensive strategy, Pakistan lost the series against Australia.
When the English team under the leadership of Ben Stokes came to Pakistan for the Test series, Babar Azam’s decision-making was revealed once again in the face of the ferocity of baseball and for the first time in history, Pakistan had to suffer from the fear of a clean sweep at home grounds.
However, the Test series against New Zealand was a bit better as Pakistan was safe from defeat but at the same time the fact that Pakistan was unable to win a single Test match at home in this cycle of the championship started to show badly.
In fact, when the English team came to Pakistan to play a long series of seven T20 matches, Babar Azam was unable to win the series due to the team selection and decision-making trends. And in the recent World Cup, Pakistan was also blessed with this weakness for the first time that it lost five matches in the event.
But there is also an overlooked aspect that Babar Azam had to deal with four different PCB chiefs during this four-year tenure. Similarly, the coaching set-up also underwent a lot of changes and had to deal with the radically different mindsets of three head coaches.
When Ehsan Mani handed over the coaching responsibility to Misbah-ul-Haq in 2019, he was given the task of preparing the team for the next ten years where some early failures were expected as a result of experimentation. But after two years of austerity under the same management, led by Babar, Pakistan went on to sweep the Test series against South Africa and defeat Australia in the ODI series.
But then Ramiz Raja became the chairman and his capriciousness showed that ad-hoc changes in the coaching set-up, ‘restructuring’ of the pitches and new selection experiments led to a new series of failures for Pakistan in Test cricket.
There is no doubt that Babar Azam’s leadership abilities were debatable and his on-field decisions at some of the most important moments cost the Pakistan team very dearly, but more expensive than Babar were the decisions of these PCB chiefs and the prime ministers who appointed them. which Babur had to climb.
