"Babar Azam was under a lot of pressure as the Pakistan captain.."- Zaka Ashraf explodes

Former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf, after a month of being removed from office, has come out to explain the real reason behind Babar Azam's decision to quit captaincy in the first place.

The star batter, before being re-appointed for the leadership role last week, had relinquished captaincy in November 2023 in light of Pakistan's humiliating exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup in India.

The Men in Green had finished 5th in the points table and had failed to reach the knock-outs for the 3rd edition in a row. 

In what was the first time Babar Azam captained his National team in the 50-over World Cup, Pakistan lost 5 out of their 9 league matches and registered victory on 4 occasions.

They had also lost matches against arch-rivals Afghanistan and India but had they won just 2 more matches, they could have found themselves in the semi-finals, possibly against the hosting nation.

Weeks after the team's exit, Babar took to the social media platform Instagram and wrote a lengthy resignation.

In light of Babar Azam's decision, the PCB went on to appoint Shan Masood as the Test captain for Pakistan's 3-match Test series in Australia and handed T20I captaincy to Shaheen Afridi. While Masood, in his first assignment, endured a 3-0 whitewash, Afridi in his first major series as captain, lost the 5-match T20 series in New Zealand by 4-1.

Their performance in the shortest format was extremely alarming and on that note, new PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi sacked Shaheen from T20 captaincy and re-appointed Babar as the leader for the white-ball formats. 

What did Zaka Ashraf say about Babar Azam's resignation in November 2023?

While speaking exclusively to media reporters over there in Lahore, Zaka Ashraf, who was the PCB chief at the time of Babar Azam's resignation, revealed some shocking details.

Ashraf claimed that he had asked Babar to continue captaining Pakistan in the red-ball format but the apex board wanted to see someone else lead the white-ball teams. 

But the star batter took that to his ego and clarified that if he is being sacked from ODIs and T20Is then he will himself step down from all formats. 

Zaka Ashraf also revealed that Babar Azam was under the pressure of leadership and it negatively impacted his batting performance.  

"I offered to retain Babar Azam as the captain for red-ball cricket, but we wanted to appoint a new captain for white-ball cricket. He responded by stating that if he were to be replaced as captain in one format, he would rather step down from captaincy in all formats."

"Consequently, I suggested that he should focus on playing as a team member for Pakistan, as it was clear that he was finding it challenging to cope with the pressure of captaincy." - Ashraf told media reporters in Lahore.

Babar Azam to resume captaincy from the series against New Zealand

Meanwhile, Babar Azam will resume captaincy of the Pakistani team when New Zealand visits the country for a 5-match T20I series. After that, Pakistan will fly over to Ireland for a 3-match T20I series and then to England for a 4-match series in the same format.