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The friction between Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi, two of the premier Pakistan players at the moment, has been blamed on the PCB’s poor management by former Pakistan cricketer Mudassar Nazar. Pakistan cricket has been rife with controversy, fueled primarily by instability within the Pakistan Cricket Board.

The impact of this has been felt on the field in recent months, with Pakistan suffering a stunning 2-0 defeat in a Test series at home to Bangladesh. Not only this, the Pakistan team has been suffering for the past 3-4 years.

They advanced to the final of the 2022 T20 World Cup, but have since failed to win any ICC competitions. Pakistan was eliminated from the group stages of both the 2023 World Cup and the 2024 T20 World Cup.

However, the historic first-ever Test series defeat to Bangladesh at home has increased the team’s scrutiny and media criticism.

One of the key concerns afflicting is the obvious animosity between star batsman Babar Azam and pace spearhead Shaheen Afridi.

Notably, Babar Azam stepped down as Pakistan’s captain in 2023 after leading the side since 2019. This led to Shaheen Afridi being named captain of the T20I side. However, a 1-4 series loss to New Zealand led to Shaheen being dumped as skipper. Babar Azam then regained the captaincy in white-ball formats.

This has led to friction between the two-star players and Mudassar Nazar blamed PCB for the escalating tension between the two senior players.

Mudassar Nazar reacts to Babar Azam leaving captaincy

“It is our own doing (the friction between Babar and Shaheen). We shouldn’t have messed around with the set-up. There was one set captain, we should have given him a longer term and if somebody else had been made a captain, then he should have had a decent go at it. And not been thrown out straight away,” Mudassar told PTI.

When Afridi was removed as Pakistan T20I captain, Afridi even went on record to say that the right decision would’ve been to make Mohammad Rizwan the captain.

Pakistan cricket goes in a cycle: Mudassar Nazar on the downfall of Men in Green

From 1976 until 1989, Nazar represented Pakistan in 76 Tests and 122 One-Day Internationals, scoring 6,767 runs and collecting 177 wickets in both formats.

He blasted the PCB for failing to address the growing challenges in Pakistan cricket, claiming that the board bears the entire responsibility for the sport’s demise in the country.

“It goes in a cycle. In Pakistan, yes, we are down at the moment. A lot of that is our own fault, the way we run cricket in Pakistan. Nobody has addressed the issue seriously. We are changing the cricket board after every two, three, four months, a year.

That hasn’t helped either. But I’m hopeful one day Pakistan cricket will come up and surely it will because before you know it, you get three, four new players who come in and start to make a name for themselves. And there you go, the Pakistan team becomes one of the top teams again,” said Nazar.

Meanwhile, Pakistan will have to hunt for a new captain for the upcoming Australia white-ball tour as Babar Azam stepped down as captain via a social media post.

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