The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has chosen Babar Azam as the skipper of One-Day International (format) along with the twenty-twenty International (T20I) format.
Previously, when Sarfaraz Ahmed was sacked off from captaincy of all three formats, Babar Azam was chosen as the skipper of T20Is whereas, Azhar Ali was appointed as the test skipper, however, the decision to choose ODI captain was left vacant.
No ODI captain was chosen because Pakistan wasn’t to play any 50 overs game in the near future. However, one-off ODI against Bangladesh was all set to be played in the first week of April, but it got suspended due to Coronavirus pandemic or else Babar Azam would have made his ODI debut as a captain.
When Azhar Ali became the test captain, he led the side in five matches at first in which, three matches got drew while the team won the rest of the two. For this reason, PCB have chosen him for the category “A”. Surprisingly, there are only three players in the newly released centrally contracted list of the players; Babar Azam, Azhar Ali, and Shaheen Shah Afridi.
PCB appoints Babar Azam as ODI skipper
On the other hand, the experienced pacers, Mohammad Amir, Wahab Riaz have lost their contracts while Hasan Ali has also been dropped off from his contracts.
Misbah ul Haq, the head coach-cum chief selector, has congratulated the three players of category “A” for their deserving promotion.
“I want to congratulate Azhar Ali and Babar Azam for getting captaincy extensions. This is absolutely the right decision as they also require certainty and clarity on their future roles. I am sure they will now start looking to the future and start planning so that they can build sides that can perform at the expected levels,” he said according to the PCB’s press release.
