Azhar Ali may lose Pakistan's Test captaincy

Bengaluru, October 24: Azhar Ali, who leads Pakistan in the longer format, may lose his job when the team tours New Zealand in late December.

Pakistan is set to play three Twenty20s and two Test matches in New Zealand from December 18 to January 7.

The 35-year-old, who is the most Test capped player now in the national team with 81 appearances, is said to be out of favour with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

He was named Test captain last year in October after sacking of Sarfaraz Ahmed as captain and player from all three formats.

With just 12 months in the job, Azhar saw the Pakistan team lose two-nil in Australia before securing home Test wins over Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Then they travelled to England where the team lost the three-match Test series 0-1, where his captaincy came under scrutiny, especially in the first Test

Babar Azam, who currently leads Pakistan in ODIs and T20s and promising wicketkeeper-batsman, Muhammad Rizwan have emerged as the front-runners to replace Azhar.

PCB CEO Wasim recently told a television channel that a meeting could be held on November 11 to decide on Azhar's future and find a new chief selector as head coach, Misbah ul Haq has relinquished the post.

It is not the first time that a captain could lose his job after just a year.

Azhar was captain of the ODI side for nearly two years after the 2015 World Cup before he decided to resign himself prompting the board asking Sarfaraz to take over as captain in all three formats.

In the past, Azhar has aid that he will step aside as captain if he is unable to contribute substantially to the team's cause.

Azhar is the first international player to score a triple century in Day/Night Test when he scored an unbeaten 302 against the West Indies team in UAE in 2016.

He later auctioned his bat with which scored the triple ton along with his national jersey to raise funds to fight the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has killed over 2.1 lakhs globally.

It was bought by a museum based in India.