Ricky Ponting: “Shaheen didn’t set the world on fire as a leader either, so I think going back into a World Cup it just looks like a more settled team when you’ve got someone like Babar as captain rather than Afridi”
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Legendary Australia batsman Ricky Ponting believes Babar Azam is the right man to captain Pakistan as the team looks “more settled” under him than Shaheen Shah Afridi.
Afridi captained the men in green in a T20I series against New Zealand in January 2024 before being stripped of the T20I captaincy.
Azam was subsequently reinstated as limited overs captain and since then, Pakistan drew 2-2 with New Zealand in a five-match T20I series, beat Ireland 2-1 in a three-match T20I series and lost 2-0 to England in a four-match T20I series.
“Captaincy just sits well with some people and it doesn’t sit well with others. We’ve seen it through the years that some of the best players that have ever played the game have not necessarily made the best captains and the thing that makes some of the very best players so good is how focused they are on what they need to do to get better and to be the best and find a way every day to get better,” Ponting told The ICC Review.
“And when you are captain, you can’t do that. You’ve got to actually compartmentalise what you’re doing, look after your own game, look after all the guys around you. So some guys can manage that better than others.
“I reckon Babar, when he first started, I had that feeling that he… because if you look at his record, his numbers went down on the back of it. So I think he might have learned a bit from that.
“Shaheen didn’t set the world on fire as a leader either, so I think going back into a World Cup it just looks like a more settled team when you’ve got someone like Babar as captain rather than Afridi.”
Most recently, Azam led Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup, where they lost to the United States of America and India before bouncing back with wins over Canada and Ireland.
Even though they won their last two group stage games, the men in green failed to advance to the Super Eights.
Pakistan Squad for 2024 T20 World Cup: Babar Azam (capt), Saim Ayub, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Azam Khan (wk), Usman Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Amir, Abbas Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Abrar Ahmed
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