Pakistan’s head coaches, Gary Kirsten and Jason Gillespie have urged the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) not to tinker with the team captaincy by making changes after the below-par showing in all game formats.
Babar Azam lost the white-ball captaincy after Pakistan’s poor showing in India’s 2023 ODI World Cup. Shaheen Shah Afridi’s replacement was shown the door after only one pathetic series. For Test cricket, Babar Azam had to resign from the captaincy, and Shan Masood was given the captaincy, but now people have started demanding his removal after losing a series 0-2 against Bangladesh.
A source in PCB today told PTI that the reports about the sacking of both Masood and Babar are false, as is the news that has been reported in the media recently. ‘There has been no debate over the change of captains; PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi has retained the matter for the coaches and selectors,’ the source said.
On this, Kirsten agrees with Gillespie, who says that Shan and Babar should be given equal opportunities to display their leadership skills. They have been keen to advise that the captaincy status should be consistent, which must have been explained well to the board.
The one-day scheduled workshop entitled ‘Cricket Connection’ will be conducted in Lahore to obtain information from the domestic heads, coaches, selectors, and contracted cricketers. They hope that the world-acclaimed coaches will employ several techniques to elevate the standards of local cricket to the world standards by ensuring that there are consistent ideas and policies and not throwing rams and policies to the wind, as one local cricket official was quoted to have said, in the recent past.
As for the captaincy for the ODI series in Australia and South Africa or for the Champions Trophy, the source said that Babar will continue to give continuity to the white ball.
