In a major development, the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) has come forward and named veteran batter Babar Azam as their new Test skipper. The change comes after Shan Masood was stripped of his captaincy and after Babar’s return. His comeback assignment as the Test skipper will be against the West Indies as Pakistan is set to take them on across two Test matches.ย
It is worth noting that Pakistan will be taking on the West Indies in Tarouba for the first Test from July 25th. The second Test of the series will be held in Port of Spain from August 2nd. With Babar returning as the skipper, Pakistan will hope for significant improvements, and it could be interesting to see how the side fares.ย
It is interesting to note that Shan Masood was named Pakistanโs Test skipper nearly three years ago. He led the side across 16 Test matches and ended up losing 12 of them.ย Furthermore, Pakistan making Babar Azam the captain once more just reflects the scarcity of candidates within the squad as the PCB continues to go with Babar.ย
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Aqib Javed weighed in on the decision
After Babar Azam was named as Pakistanโs new Test skipper, the sideโs high-performance director, Aqib Javed, took centre stage and talked about how the sideโs recent performances in the format forced them to take the decision.ย
“We saw many close Test matches [under Shan’s captaincy]. But a few things were not being addressed. Like the Centurion Test, South Africa’s two batters at number 10 put on a 60-70 run partnership [51 runs]. The game was in our hands. Against the West Indies in Multan, in the second Test, the team was rolled over easily. The captain has a responsibility of finishing games. Same with the South Africa Tests at home,โ Javed was quoted as saying by Cricinfo.
Pakistan squad for West Indies: Babar Azam (c), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Fazal, Ali Usman, Azan Awais, Imam ul Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Awais Zafar, Muhammad Ghazi Ghori, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Shan Masood, Ubaid Shah
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