Sarfaraz Khan’s stint as Pakistan’s captain came to an abrupt end following the T20I series defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka at home. He also lost his place in the team for the tour of Australia and is now back playing domestic cricket to earn a recall.
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Reacting to the sacking for the first time, Sarfaraz revealed that PCB’s MD Wasim Khan delivered him the news that he had been removed as captain. He was replaced by Azhar Ali as Test captain while youngster Babar Azam was given the charge for T20Is.
Under him (Babar), Pakistan did not have favourable results in the series against Australia and lost the three-match series 0-2. Rain in the first T20I prevented Australia from whitewashing the visitors. Reacting to the results of T20I series, Sarfaraz backed Babar and said that he is a young captain and needs support.
“Babar is new to the job and my message for all is that we need to support him as much as possible. He is a young captain & he has a young team with him and it’s not easy for a young captain to go to a tough place and fight against a strong team,” he said.
In total, Sarfaraz led Pakstan in 13 Tests, 50 ODIs and 37 T20Is. In the longest format, Pakistan won four and lost eight Tests under him. In the 50-over format, they won 28 and lost 20 matches. In the shortest format, Pakistan had favourable results as they won 29 matches with a winning percentage of 78.37.
After the World Cup 2019, they won the ODI series against Sri Lanka at home but a 0-3 defeat against a second-string Sri Lankan team saw the board ring changes and Sarfaraz was dropped from the team and captaincy. Before that, PCB had already removed Mickey Arthur as head coach, roping in Misbah-ul-Haq as chief coach and chairman of selectors.
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Pakistan next face Australia in a two-match Test series starting November 21 in Brisbane. The second Test of the series, starting November 29, will be a day-night match and will be played with a pink ball.