Azhar Ali is the Right Man

He can speak English.

He is free from controversies.

He is calm.

He has a good temperament towards batting and the game as a whole.

He had a good batting record as ODI skipper.

He’s had experience of captaincy in domestic cricket with some success.

He is a thorough professional.

He is mentally tough and unworried about any external noise. 

He captained in 10 ODI series in a row running into the 2017 Champions Trophy after the 2015 World Cup. His contribution towards Pakistan’s win in that tournament can’t be underestimated. Not only his runs with the bat at the top of the innings, but his captaincy in helping Pakistan qualify for that tournament and build some confidence with series wins against Sri Lanka and West Indies under him and also importantly an ODI win in England at Cardiff where they ended up meeting England in the Champions Trophy semi final. Hasan Ali, Babar Azam and Imad Wasim all started and developed under Azhar.

He had a decent ODI record as Captain, winning half of his series and individually having a respectable average and strike rate while leading the ODI side. His removal was harsh. He had a tough schedule as ODI Captain with two series vs England’s strongest ODI team ever that went on to become world champions, a series in Bangladesh against Bangladesh’s strongest ever team and an away ODI series against the teams that played the 2015 World Cup final. Only those were the series he lost as skipper. His ODI record against everybody else and more realistic teams Pakistan could win against was pretty clinical i.e. series wins against West Indies, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Ireland.  

The purpose of making him ODI Captain was to groom him as a successor for the longer form of the game. He deserves a chance to prove his credentials as a Test leader. 

He is principled with his stance he took on Mohammad’s Amir return to the side. This shows leadership in my view. Prepared to make his views heard. Having strong team beliefs and principles he is prepared to stand by and let other people know about. 

He is a deep thinker of the game. We saw him impress as a pundit during the final week of the 2019 HBL PSL as a studio analyst.

He’s had experience of the Western World by spending lots of time in England to make him understand the developed world and appreciate different environments and cultures.

He’s played two seasons of county cricket for Somerset and experienced the grind of four day county championship division 1 cricket with the pressures of being an overseas signing.

He’s played a lot of Test Cricket without missing a single series and experienced Pakistan’s remarkable journey and redemption since the 2010 spot fixing scandal throughout. He’s been a constant presence and contributor too.

I observed him at Radlett this year in a domestic list A game where he was very active in the field as a Somerset player and had lots of advice and suggestions he was willing to share with regards to field placements and tactics.

He is a responsible, thinking and sensible cricketer. Qualities of leadership.

He only plays Test Cricket now and can put all his energies there. Long serving and successful Test Captains tend to be experienced batsmen themselves. He was vice captain of the team that topped the Test rankings in 2016 and always the preferred leadership option for Coach Misbah and now bowling coach Waqar. He is wanted in that set up.