During his recent appearance on Cricbuzz Live, former England captain Michael Vaughan has clearly sided with Pakistan captain Babar Azam citing that he is being treated disrespectfully by the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) amid ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.
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Currently playing their seventh match of the tournament against Bangladesh in Kolkata, Pakistan losing four matches were enough for the eruption of conspiracy theories around players’ future. Even though no one is turning a blind eye to their scrappy performance in this World Cup, Vaughan laid emphasis on letting the tournament finish before key stakeholders start pointing fingers at each other.
“I just don’t like the lack of respect that Babar Azam is being shown. I just think that it’s a disgrace that these stories are being leaked. Babar Azam is a wonderful player. Fantastic for Pakistan. Fantastic for the world game,” Vaughan told host Gaurav Kapur on Cricbuzz Live.
“When you see these kinds of stories around a captain during a World Cup – leave it till the end. If at the end of the World Cup, you think that he’s not the right person to take Pakistan forward as a captain, no problem. You’re allowed to take that decision. But during the World Cup, when the gossip is coming from your board, [from] within Pakistan cricket, I find that disrespectful.”
As a skipper, it isn’t astonishing to find Azam getting targeted from several corners within the Pakistani cricketing fraternity. Pakistan’s fourth-highest run-scorer in this World Cup thus far, a middling personal campaign has also worked against the 29-year old player. While some high-profile names expressing reservations about his captaincy is still bearable, Azam’s personal WhatsApp chat with PCB COO Salman Naseer being leaked in the public domain finds trust between a player and a cricket board in the middle of nowhere.
If enunciating a sincere opinion wasn’t enough, Vaughan also made it a point to express his displeasure over the whole episode on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Shaheen Shah Afridi Being Speculated To Replace Babar Azam As Captain
If the reports of removing Azam from the leadership role wasn’t enough, another set of unconfirmed reports claim that fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi is all in readiness of becoming Pakistan’s 35th Test captain, 31st ODI captain and 11th T20I captain.
A primary reason behind the same is Afridi leading Lahore Qalandars to back-to-back Pakistan Super League titles in 2022 and 2023. Only PSL team without a season victory until last year, Qalandars became the first-ever team to successfully defend a PSL title earlier this year.
Having said that, both Vaughan and legendary broadcaster Harsha Bhogle had a poor opinion for such an ill-timed rumour. Not wanting to downplay the importance of a T20 silverware, Vaughan still considered T20 captaincy to be far less demanding than leading an international team in both the ODI and Test format.
Bhogle, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced with the prospect of an injury-prone fast bowler leading an international side across all the three formats. In addition to bringing forth the example of Australia captain Pat Cummins, Bhogle also didn’t mince his words while stating how the pressure of a change in leadership is coming from an “influential” franchise such as Lahore.
