Yasir Arafat: “I think, the recommendations he gave, especially regarding Babar’s captaincy after analysing his leadership in England and also in the World Cup, led to Babar’s resignation”
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Former Pakistan all-rounder Yasir Arafat believes white-ball head coach Gary Kirsten played an instrumental role in Babar Azam stepping down as limited overs captain.
Arafat noted that Kirsten handed in a report after the 2024 T20 World Cup in June and based off the recommendations he made, it ultimately led to the 30-year-old resigning.
The 42-year-old also believes that Kirsten felt Azam “was not the perfect candidate for [the] Pakistan captaincy”.
“If you remember, after the end of the T20 World Cup 2024 Gary Kirsten wrote a report. So, I think, the recommendations he gave, especially regarding Babar’s captaincy after analysing his leadership in England and also in the World Cup, led to Babar’s resignation,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
“Also, he [Kirsten] had analysed that Babar was not the perfect candidate for [the] Pakistan captaincy.”
Azam recently played in Pakistan’s two-Test series against Bangladesh and scored 64 runs at an average of 16.
He was then in action for the Stallions in the Champions One-Day Cup, which was a domestic 50-over competition that took place in Faisalabad.
In the four games he featured in, he amassed 230 runs, which included a century and a fifty, at an average of 76.66.
After this, Azam took part in the first Test against England and made scores of 30 and 5.
He was removed from the team for the second Test, which Pakistan won by 152 runs, and won’t be in the playing XI for the third Test either, which gets underway on October 24 in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Squad for 2nd and 3rd Tests against England: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Kamran Ghulam, Mehran Mumtaz, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Zahid Mahmood.
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