The Pakistan Cricket Board have announced Sarfaraz Ahmed as the test captain replacing Misbah- UL- Haq who retired recently after the test series against West Indies that took place this year. Misbah- UL- Haq was one of the best captains in Pakistan history captaining in 56 test matches winning 26, losing 19 and draw 11 times.
Sarfraz Ahmed will take the role of captaincy in all three formats. He took over the captaincy role in T20 format after Pakistan poor performance in ICC World T20 2016 as they were knocked out in the group stage. Shahid Afridi decided to resign from T20 captaincy. Under his Sarfraz Ahmed captaincy, Pakistan has played 9 matches, winning 7 matches and losing 1 match with the win percentage of 87.50%.
Sarfraz Ahmed took the role of ODI captaincy from Azhar Ali as he resigned from Pakistan captaincy after poor performances in the ODI Series against Australia in February this year. Sarfraz Ahmed was captaining for the first time in major ICC tournament during the recently concluded Champions Trophy 2017 held in England. After losing the first match against arch-rivals India, Sarfraz Ahmed captaincy played a key role helping them to win important matches against South Africa and Sri Lanka to reach the semi-finals.
Pakistan trashed the favorites England in the semi-finals to reach finals against India. In the finals, Pakistan outplayed India by 180 runs to win their maiden ICC Champions Trophy title. Under his captaincy, the Men in Green has played 8 matches, winning 7 and losing 2 matches with a win percentage of 77.77%.
It will be the first time that Pakistan would have one captain in all three formats. The veteran player Misbah UL Haq decided to give up T20 captaincy after the World T20 2012 held in Sri Lanka. Misbah played a key role in helping to reach the number 1 ranked team in test matches last year. But due to poor form and captaincy, Pakistan has slipped down to number 6th in latest test rankings.
With Sarfraz Ahmed given the role of test captaincy, with his great skills behind the gloves and also leading skills, he would definitely bring back Pakistan again back to the top level. His first test captaincy in test matches would be tested series against Sri Lanka in October.
Sarfraz Ahmed has played 36 matches as a batsman scoring 2085 runs with an average of 41.70. He has 3 centuries and 13 half centuries with the best score of 112.
