Pakistan Cricket Board has shaken up its Test leadership, removing Shan Masood as captain and handing the job back to Babar Azam for a second stint in charge. The change was confirmed as the board announced its squad for the upcoming two match Test series against West Indies, which means it will be Babar Azam, not Masood, walking out to lead the side when that series gets underway. For a team that has been struggling for direction in the longest format, the timing of the switch says a lot about how much patience had run out inside the board.
A losing run that broke records
Masood was handed the Test captaincy roughly three years ago, and in that time he led Pakistan in 16 matches. Of those 16, the team lost 12, a number that stands out even by the standards of a format where new captains are usually given time to settle in. No captain in the entire history of Test cricket has lost as many matches in his first 16 games at the helm, which puts Masood's run in a category of its own. The next worst mark for Pakistan belongs to Misbah-ul-Haq, who ended up losing 19 Tests as captain, but Misbah reached that number only after leading the side in 56 matches, more than three times the games Masood got before being removed. Adding to the pressure, Pakistan is currently on a losing streak of seven Test matches in a row, a run that made the leadership change look almost inevitable.
Just one series win in seven
Results in bigger series were no better. Masood's tenure opened with a 3-0 series defeat to Australia soon after he took over. Then came a result with no precedent in Pakistan's Test history, a 2-0 series loss to Bangladesh on home soil, the first time Pakistan had ever lost a home Test series to that opponent. The single bright spot in his time as captain was a series win against England. Add it all up, and across seven Test series under Masood, Pakistan won just one and lost four, a return that dragged the team all the way to the bottom of the World Test Championship points table, below every other side in the current cycle.
Babar's numbers made the recall an easy call
Babar Azam's numbers from his own earlier stint as captain explain why the board turned back to him. He led Pakistan to 10 wins in 20 Tests, a record that included clean sweeps on tours of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and he averaged more than 50 with the bat across those matches, a mark most captains would sign up for immediately. His captaincy was not flawless either, Pakistan lost a home series 3-0 to England while he was in charge, the first time that had ever happened in the country's Test history. But with no other candidate seen as strong enough to take over the role right now, the board has chosen to trust Babar Azam once again as it looks to steer Pakistan's Test team through the West Indies series and the challenges that lie beyond it.
