Babar Azam joins a new team after Pakistan's loss in T20 World Cup 2024

After suffering a premature exit from the ICC T20 World Cup 2024, Pakistan captain Babar Azam has signed for a new team in the Canada T20 league. 

This comes weeks after Pakistan's journey in the T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies came to an end from the Group stages itself. Babar Azam's side lost back-to-back matches in Group A which made the scenario of their qualification to the Super 8s very difficult. The entire team's performance except for a few players was highly questionable. 

Pakistan first lost to co-hosts USA in the most dramatic of fashions. Babar Azam and co. made way too many mistakes during the regulation game time and ended up taking the game to a Super Over, this tournament's first as of now. In those 6 balls, Mohammad Amir conceded 18 runs with the United States having an upper hand already. 

In response, Pakistan's poor tactics to send a right-hand batter to face a left-arm pacer backfired and they lost by 5 runs ultimately. In their following match against arch-rivals India, against whom they have just won once, Pakistan lost it all from a very good position of winning. Babar Azam's players had it all in their hands until the 15th over and until the return of Jasprit Bumrah. 

Mohammad Rizwan, who was playing exceptionally well, lost his wicket in the very first ball of the 15th over and after that, Pakistan just collapsed and lost by 6 runs. The Men in Green did win their last two Group games against Canada and Ireland but it was too late by then as USA and India already went through. 

A few changes in the Pakistani system are expected to take place but amid the crisis, National team skipper Babar Azam has found a new franchise. 

Canadian GT20 league's Vancouver Knights bring Babar Azam on board

Weeks after his side's exit, Babar Azam has found a new way to stay relevant in the cricketing domain and earn some easy money from franchise cricket. For the first time in his career, Babar will be seen playing in the Global T20 League's season 4, organized by the Canadian Cricket Board. 

Babar Azam has been signed up by the Vancouver Knights for the 2024 season, which is going to start from 25th July onwards. It will mark the first time Babar played franchise cricket in North America. He will be hoping to make his first stint with Vancouver, a fruitful one after experiencing a terrible T20 World Cup in the USA. 

When Babar Azam heads over to Canada next month, he will find National teammate Mohammad Rizwan as well as a few more international icons. The league will commence on 25th July and conclude on 11th August. 

Vancouver Knights squad 

Babar Azam, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Rizwan, Asif Ali, Michael Rippon, Dwaine Pretorious, Sandeep Lamichhane, Dipendra Singh Airee, Paul Van Meekren, Ruben Trumpelmann, Jeremy Gordon, Harsh Thaker, Rishav Joshi, Sarmad Anwar, Shubham Sharma, Yuvraj Samra, Ajayveer Singh and Mandeep Girdhar.