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Babar Azam (Image source: Twitter)
On Thursday, Babar Azam, the captain of the Pakistan cricket team, received two awards from the International Cricket Council (ICC) - ICC Men's Player of the Year and ODI Player of the Year. In 2022, Babar had an impressive year, scoring over 2,600 runs in international cricket, which was more than any other player. He also had a strong performance in one-day internationals (ODIs), with 8 scores of 50 or higher in 9 games. This achievement matched Virat Kohli's accomplishment of receiving player of the year awards in consecutive years in the ODI format.
Despite Babar Azam's impressive performances with the bat in international cricket, his skills as a captain have been called into question in recent months. The Pakistani team, led by Babar, lost in the finals of the Asia Cup and T20 World Cup in 2022 and also had a losing streak during their home Test series against Australia, England, and New Zealand. Recently, rumours have circulated about Babar potentially being removed as captain and a reporter even asked him about it during a press conference.
Despite facing criticism for his captaincy, many, including Pakistan's former wicketkeeper-batter Rashid Latif, continue to support Babar Azam. Latif praised Babar's batting abilities and stated that Pakistan currently lacks suitable alternatives for the captaincy position.
“You tell me the options. How much does Shadab (Khan) play? He misses 50 percent matches due to injury. He is not an option. If Shadab is available throughout, I would've said myself that Babar can step down. Shaheen (Afridi) is out of injury as well. There's only one guy who plays all the matches,” said Latif.
It was a very bad move- Rashid Latif
Latif then used Sarfaraz Ahmed as an example to make his point on Pakistan’s captaincy conundrum.
"Whatever is happening to Babar right now, the same thing happened to Sarfaraz a few years ago. That was a big mistake and we raised our voices against that. It was a very bad move. We still haven't recovered from that.
"If you think you can do a reset after removing Babar from captaincy... you said that the players are complaining (about Babar). There's no one who can stand in front of him right now.