{"id":666846,"date":"2026-07-05T22:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T02:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/?p=666846"},"modified":"2026-07-05T22:04:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T02:04:30","slug":"pakistan-cricket-faces-coup-shan-masood-stripped-of-captaincy-babar-azam-takes-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/666846\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan cricket faces ‘coup’, Shan Masood stripped of captaincy; Babar Azam takes over"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Courtesy: X @cricbuzz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Islamabad:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Pakistan cricket has once again seen a major change. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) selection committee has handed over the Test team captaincy from Shan Masood to Babar Azam. This decision was made keeping in mind the upcoming tours of the West Indies and England. The selection committee announced the new captain during a press conference in Lahore. Babar Azam will captain Pakistan’s Test team for the second time. He previously led the team from 2021 to 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pakistan Test team under Shan Masood’s leadership failed to live up to expectations. Under his captaincy, the team played 16 Test matches, winning only four and losing 12.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following a 0-2 defeat in the recent Test series against Bangladesh, the team slumped to the bottom of the World Test Championship points table. This sparked speculation about a captaincy change. Although Masood led the team to a 2-1 series win against England at home, a string of poor results led to his resignation.<\/span><\/p>\n

This comeback will not be easy for Babar Azam. His Test performances have been below expectations over the past few years. He hasn’t scored a century in Test cricket since 2022, and his average has dropped significantly in recent matches. Now, the selectors hope that with the captaincy, Babar will be able to improve both his batting and the team’s performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pakistan team will play a two-Test series against the West Indies starting July 25th. This will be followed by a crucial three-Test series against England in August and September. These two tours are considered the first major tests of Babar Azam’s captaincy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The selection committee has included several new faces in the squad for both tours. Ali Usman, Mohammad Awais Zafar, Ubaid Shah, and wicketkeeper Mohammad Ghazi Ghori have earned their first Test call-ups. The board believes that giving young players a chance can inject new energy into the team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now everyone’s eyes will be on whether Babar Azam is able to give a new direction to Pakistan cricket in his second captaincy or the team’s struggle continues further.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Islamabad:\u00a0Pakistan cricket has once again seen a major change. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) selection committee has handed over the Test team captaincy from Shan Masood to Babar Azam. This decision was made keeping in mind the upcoming tours of the West Indies and England. The selection committee announced the new captain during a press conference in Lahore. Babar Azam will captain Pakistan’s Test team for the second time. He previously led the team from 2021 to 2023. The Pakistan Test team under Shan Masood’s leadership failed to live up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":666847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47741],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666846"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666849,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666846\/revisions\/666849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}