THE Pakistan Cricket Board decision to sack Sarfraz Ahmed from the captaincy of all three formats of the game and appoint Babar Azam as the new T20 team skipper is beyond comprehension.

The PCB management said it took the decision in the backdrop of Sarfraz’s overall performance. One wonders whether the PCB considered the memorable records achieved by the team under his captaincy. Pakistan became the world’s number one T-20 side under his captaincy. It won 29 out of 37 T-20 games.

Sarfraz led the team to 11 consecutive T-20 match victories and whitewashed the opponent sides on five occasions in a bilateral series. Despite playing away from home, thanks to Sarfraz Pakistan is still the world’s top T-20 side.

There is no doubt that Sarfraz’s performance as a batsman has not been impressive of late, but this is no reason for the PCB to have sacked him. He should have been retained as T-20 skipper till the ICC World T20 to be held in Australia next year.

Imtiaz Junejo

Hyderabad

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ONE wonders why Sarfraz Ahmad was removed as captain of the T-20 team. He had worked very hard to make the team the world’s best in the game’s short format. His poor performance in one series should have been overlooked.

There are murmurs that some senior players didn’t behave responsibly. For this the blame rests on the shoulders of the selectors and the coach and the captain should not be blamed. The bigwigs of cricket in the PCB should reconsider the decision.

A Pakistani

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2019