File image of Sarfaraz Ahmed
Karachi is slated to hold a protest march on Sunday over Sarfaraz Ahmed's sacking as Pakistan's Test and T20I skipper. The news broke on Friday when PCB made the announcement just days ahead of their November-December tour of Australia. Adding to his woes, his poor run of form has resulted in Sarfaraz being dropped from both the formats. While Azhar Ali has been named as Pakistan's new Test skipper, Babar Azam will take on the responsibility for the T20I side. The decision for the ODI captaincy has been put on hold.
PCB's decision implies that Pakistan will be heading to Australia with a whole new team setup - new coach, new selector and new skipper. Azhar, whom Sarfaraz had replaced as a skipper in limited-overs cricket in 2016, has been named as Test skipper for the ongoing World Test Championship where Pakistan will begin their journey with a two-Test series against Australia in November. Babar has been named as T20I skipper until World T20 next year.
"It has been a difficult decision to drop Sarfaraz Ahmed, who has performed well as a player and a leader," PCB chairman Ehsan Mani said in a statement. "But, his loss in form and confidence is visible and, in the best interest of the team, it has been decided to leave him out and provide him the opportunity to reflect and regroup himself and try to reclaim his form away from international cricket.
"Sarfaraz Ahmed's contributions are second to none and being the gutsy cricketer and fighter that we all know he is, I have no doubts he will be back in Pakistan colours at some stage."
For Sarfaraz, Pakistan's five-match winning streak in World Cup 2019 and a 2-0 win against Sri Lanka at home in ODIs have put his captaincy in the 50-over format on hold.
