Sarfaraz Ahmed
Sarfaraz Ahmed (Credits: Twitter)

Sarfaraz Ahmed’s tenure as Pakistan captain came to an end on Friday in an unceremonious fashion. While his captaincy was under the scanner for quite some time now, there is no denying that the decision from Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) came out of the blue. PCB sacked the wicketkeeper-batsman as the Test and T20I captain and named Azhar Ali and Babar Azam as the new captains.

A decision on the ODI captaincy has been put on hold, as Pakistan’s next 50-over assignment isn’t until July next year. Not only that, Sarfaraz Ahmed was also dropped for Pakistan’s upcoming tour of Australia. Sarfaraz Ahmed was named the T20I captain following the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 in India, while he took over as their ODI skipper in 2017 after Azhar Ali stepped down.

Under his captaincy, Pakistan won the Champions Trophy 2017 by defeating arch-rivals India in the final. But things did not really pan out in the expected manner after that historic win. The year started with a Test series drubbing at the hands of the South Africa, which was followed by a sequence of 11 back-to-back defeats in ODIs.

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Sarfaraz Ahmed
Sarfaraz Ahmed. (Source: Twitter)

Pakistan performed terribly in the World Cup too and exited the competition at the league stage. Ever since then, voices were raised for the removal of Sarfaraz Ahmed as captain of the side. The recent 3-0 loss to a second-string Sri Lankan side at home probably sealed Sarfaraz’s fate as captain. His poor form with the bat and poor fitness did not help his cause either.

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And as if the removal from captaincy and the team was not enough, PCB rubbed more salt to Sarfaraz’s wounds by posting a distasteful tweet. Moments after Sarfaraz was removed as captain, the PCB tweeted a GIF of Pakistan players dancing. Sarfaraz was seen leaving the frame in the GIF.

But PCB did not take long to realise its mistake and was quick to issue an apology for the same, tweeting:

“The PCB apologies for this post and accepts the timing of it was wrong. This was a pre-planned post as part of the one-year to go #T20WorldCup promotional campaign. The timing of this post clashed with the captaincy announcement for which the PCB offers its regrets.”

 

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