Babar Azam Controversy: The captain of Pakistan’s cricket team, Babar Azam, intends to take legal action following the leak of his WhatsApp conversation during a live show by a local journalist on a private media channel.
The leaked chat came to light after claims by former Pakistan wicketkeeper batter Rashid Latif. He alleged that Babar Azam had been sending messages to top officials at PCB, but hadn’t received any responses.
Babar Azam Controversy for leaked chats made this decision after discussing the matter thoroughly with his legal advisors.
Notably, Azam visited the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Lahore to meet with Ashraf and discuss his future as the team’s captain.
After consulting with close associates regarding his captaincy, Azam has decided that he will step down from all formats if asked to retain captaincy in only one format.
Recent reports had suggested that the PCB would remove Babar Azam from captaincy across all formats following Pakistan’s failure to qualify for the ICC World Cup 2023 semi-finals in India.
Sources indicated that if Babar chooses not to resign voluntarily, the board plans to dismiss him. They also mentioned Shan Masood as a strong contender for the Test series captaincy against Australia, and Shaheen Shah Afridi for the T20I series in New Zealand. Shaheen might even lead in the upcoming T20 World Cup.
Despite being appointed as captain for white-ball cricket in 2019 and for Tests in 2020, Pakistan hasn’t secured any ICC or Asia Cup titles under Azam’s leadership. Even though Pakistan entered the World Cup as the top-ranked team, they couldn’t perform well and exited in the group stage.