Replacing Babar Azam as captain is not the solution: Shahid Afridi

After a humiliating series loss at the hands of England, Pakistan captain Babar Azam has become the target of all the critics. His cousin brother Kamran Akmal is no exception as he recently slammed the 28-year-old Pakistan captain and questioned his maturity as a leader. He called out Babar and raised questions about his attitude on the field and said that there’s nothing positive about the cricketer.

Meanwhile, Shahid Afridi, former skipper of Pakistan doesn’t agree that criticising Babar is the solution to the problems. He believes that the team management along with Babar should change their mindset in order to play a certain brand of cricket. Afridi also mentioned that blaming Babar is unfair as there are other senior members in the management who should take some responsibility as well.

“This (replacing Babar as captain) is not the solution. The mindset of the captain needs to be changed. Management needs to change the mindset, they need to demand a certain style of cricket from the captain and his team.

If you have to take the Pakistan team to the top, you need to change Babar's mindset. It's not only his mistake or responsibility. The management also has the responsibility, they are so much more senior. They need to make the players understand on the style of cricket they expect from them,” Afridi said.

“So, if only Babar is being held responsible for this debacle, it would be very unfair,” he added.

Pakistan announce squad for New Zealand series

After a disastrous performance against the Three Lions, Pakistan are now gearing up to take on New Zealand at home and earn back some lost pride. The team has called Hasan Ali back into the squad for the two-match Test series and Naseem Shah, who missed the second and third Test against England because of a shoulder injury.

Meanwhile, uncapped batter Kamran Ghulam will be replacing Azhar Ali for the series while Faheem Ashraf is advised to play domestic cricket at the moment.

Pakistan Test Squad for New Zealand Series: Babar Azam (captain), Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Salman Ali Agha, Saud Shakeel, Shan Masood and Zahid Mahmood