Ahead of foreign tours
\nLAHORE
\nWicket-keeper batter Mohammad Rizwan has been appointed as the captain of Pakistan\u2019s white-ball cricket teams, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi announced on Sunday.
\nThe development came after Babar Azam, on October 2, stepped down as the captain of white-ball teams, saying he wanted \u201cto prioritise my performance, enjoy batting, and spend quality time with family\u201d.
\nRizwan\u2019s first assignment as the skipper will be a three-match one-day international (ODI) and T20I series against Australia commencing from November 4.
\nFurthermore, Naqvi announced that spin-allrounder Salman Ali Agha has been named vice-captain of the Pakistan cricket team.
\nHowever, Agha will lead the T20I side in Zimbabwe as Rizwan is rested under a workload management plan, stated a press release issued by the cricket governing body.
\nThe 32-year-old Rizwan, who debuted in white-ball cricket in 2015, has played 74 ODIs and 102 T20Is to date, scoring 5,401 runs with four centuries and accounting for 143 dismissals behind the stumps. As he leads the team in the opening ODI against Australia in Melbourne on 4 November, Rizwan will become Pakistan\u2019s 31st captain. For the first T20I in Brisbane on 14 November, he will be the 12th to captain Pakistan in the format.
\nAddressing a presser alongside the newly-appointed captain and selectors, the PCB chief said after Babar resigned from the captaincy, the board started consultations with the selection committee and mentors.
\n\u201cIt was nearly a unanimous opinion that Rizwan should be the captain and Salman should be vice-captain,\u201d he said, adding that both the players were in contact with the selectors and he met Rizwan yesterday as well.
\nHe wished both the players the best and prayed for their success while stressing the need to promote young talent and respect domestic cricket.
\nThe chairman also praised the selection committee for \u201cworking non-stop\u201d for the Two Tests against England \u2014 which the Green Shirts won and secured a much-need series victory after three years.
\nTerming Babar an \u201casset\u201d for the Pakistan cricket team, Naqvi asserted that the batter contacted him and refused to play as captain. \u201cIt was his [Azam] decision [\u2026] He wanted to focus on his game.\u201d
\nHe further said that they want the former captain to return to his form \u2014 referring to a dip in his batting performance across all formats.
\n\u201cA lot has been done, but much remains to be achieved,\u201d he added.
\nResponding to a question regarding opener Fakhar Zaman, Naqvi acknowledged an issue with the left-handed batter\u2019s recent tweet, but said bigger problem was his \u201cfitness\u201d.
\nFor his part, Rizwan acknowledged the newly-announced squads for the Australia tour, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s a balanced side comprising experienced as well as youngsters.\u201d
\n\u201cOur long-term focus is to achieve a good combination in the squad,\u201d he said, noting that in the white-ball format, the focus should be on \u201cfitness\u201d.
\nHe also lauded the performance of youngsters in the recent Champions One-Day Cup, saying that their priority is to take the young players to international standard and remove the gap.
\nEarlier in the day, the cricket board had announced the squad for the upcoming series against Australia and Zimbabwe.
\nODI squad for Australia: Mohammad Rizwan (captain), Salman Ali Agha (vice-captain), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Arafat Minhas, Babar Azam, Faisal Akram, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah (WK), Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hasnain, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Saim Ayub, Shaheen Shah Afridi
\nT20I squad for Australia: Mohammad Rizwan (captain), Salman Ali Agha (vice-captain), Arafat Minhas, Babar Azam, Haris Rauf, Haseebullah (WK), Jahandad Khan, Mohammad Abbas Afridi, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Naseem Shah, Omair Bin Yousuf, Sahibzada Farhan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Sufyan Moqim, Usman Khan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ahead of foreign tours LAHORE Wicket-keeper batter Mohammad Rizwan has been appointed as the captain of Pakistan\u2019s white-ball cricket teams, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi announced on Sunday. The development came after Babar Azam, on October 2, stepped down as the captain of white-ball teams, saying he wanted \u201cto prioritise my performance, enjoy …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72153,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72141\/revisions\/72153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}