ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is all set to handover One Day and Test cricket leadership to young Sarfraz Ahmed and Azhar Ali in a pretext of team’s failure against Australia, an official source confirmed on Wednesday.
Azhar would replace Misbah as a Test captain while Sarfraz would take over Azhar as a One day leader, the source said adding it has been decided in principle and would be announced before West Indian series.
Azhar’s performance as a one day captain against Australia has forced management to shift responsibility to Sarfraz, known as a tough competitor in all sort of the game.
This has been a strange move by PCB as every time a player not even included in a squad returns in the team as a leader, so is the case with Azhar. Azhar remained out of the team for more than a year.
The source said PCB is not satisfied at all with Azhar’s ODI captaincy and change was imperative for national cricket.
Sarfraz known as”Dhoka nahi de ga” had proved his worth and selection in the past successfully and public opinion has also forced PCB to handover him top slot.
“The board would farewell Misbah with honour and dignity as he hasled Pakistan extremely well. The decision of retirement, however, lies with him (Misbah, he said.
The source said Misbah is already 42 and the board has to think about test team’s future.
Pakistan is scheduled to play a series against West Indies after the conclusion of Pakistan Super League (PSL) in March. The Pakistan-West Indies series would include Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s.
