Inzamam-ul-Haq: “What does this mean? That the PCB had already decided in advance what they wanted to do?”
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Former Pakistan chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq has questioned if the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had already “decided in advance” to sack Babar Azam as captain and Mickey Arthur as team director.
Both of them were removed from their respective positions after the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup, with Shan Masood and Shaheen Shah Afridi replacing Azam as Test captain and T20I skipper respectively.
In Inzamam’s opinion, he was shocked the PCB made such a drastic move so shortly after the World Cup as he expected them to perhaps give Azam and Arthur more time to prove themselves.
“What does this mean? That the PCB had already decided in advance what they wanted to do?” he was quoted as saying by NDTV.
After being stripped of the leadership role, Azam featured in Pakistan’s three-match Test series against Australia and scored 126 runs at an average of 21.
He then went on to accumulate 213 runs, which included three fifties, at an average of 42.60 and a strike-rate of 142 in the five-match T20I series against New Zealand.
Right now, Azam is in action in the 2024 Pakistan Super League (PSL), where he is captaining the Peshawar Zalmi.
Peshawar Zalmi Squad for PSL 9: Babar Azam (captain), Rovman Powell, Saim Ayub, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Asif Ali, Mohammad Haris, Aamer Jamal, Naveen-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Salman Irshad, Arif Yaqoob, Umair Afridi, Dan Mousley, Haseebullah Khan, Mohammad Zeeshan, Mehran Mumtaz, Luke Wood, Sufiyan Muqeem, Waqar Salamkheil, Arshad Iqbal, Gus Atkinson, Shamar Joseph
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