After a heart-bustling and nerve wrenching contest, England snatched victory from Pakistan’s hands. Pakistan, who played extremely well for the first two days, were unable to come up with any answer to Chris Woakes and Jos Buttler’s on-slaught on 4th day of the test. The question arises, as was also raised by some commentators on live TV, if Azhar Ali good enough to be Pakistan’s test captain. The honest answer would be a big NO as it has been seen that Azhar Ali lacks innovation, out of the box thinking and also seems to give up on crunch situations.
Many ex-crickters also criticised and questioned Azhar’s leadership and captaincy skills. Among others, former captain and great fast bowler, Wasim Akram was quite furious about the defensive approach of Azhar Ali and was specially critical of him not trying innovative tactics against the free flowing English allrounders. According to the Sultan of swing, Pakistan is known for its aggressive and unpredictable approach which is also their strength and accordingly should have attacked Woakes by testing him with some short-pitched stuff. Whereas, Azhar missed the trick and let Butler and Woakes not just settle in but also failed to stop the flow of runs.
Lots of discussion is going on if Azhar Ali is capable enough to lead when his own performance is nothing less than abysmal. In his last 8 test matches, he has scored his runs at a modest average of just around 19 with just one century and no half centuries at all. With this performance, he might even lose his place in the team and personal performance seems to be affecting his captaincy as well.
Lots of social media users are urging to promote either Babar Azam or Shan Masood as test captains and drop Azhar Ali to induct new blood in the team. What are your view on this, please share in the comments section below.
https://baaythak.com/2020/08/09/is-azhar-ali-good-enough-a-captain-as-england-beats-pakistan/