Babar Azam, the captain of Pakistan, and five other players have elected to stay in the United States longer as the rest of the team gets ready to return home after their country’s team crashed out of the upcoming T20 World Cup 2024.
Other than the captain, who leaves for Pakistan on June 22, players that will stay behind are Imad Wasim, Mohammad Amir, Haris Rauf, Shadab Khan, and Azam Khan.
In a few days, Amir will travel to England, where he will join the Derbyshire country cricket club. On the other hand, when the team was unable to advance to the Super 8 round of the tournament, coach Gary Kirsten will also be returning home.
The remaining players will leave Miami this evening, travel separately to their various locations via Dubai, and arrive in Pakistan early on June 19.
A day earlier, Babar announced that he was prepared to resign from his position as Pakistan’s white-ball captain following the Green Shirts’ appalling performance in the major tournament, which saw them only win against Canada and Ireland after losing consecutively to the US and their bitter rivals, India.
At a press conference held in Florida following the Ireland match, the captain gave his assessment of the team’s performance, saying, “We did not perform well as a team; it isn’t because of one person that we lost; we could not click as a team.”
I haven’t made up my mind about being a captain yet. But I can resign if the board requests it […] We’ll discuss surgery if the PCB chairman believes it’s necessary,” the top hitter stated.
His comments coincided with the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) announcement last week, according to sources who spoke with Geo News, that the players’ core contracts would be reviewed in light of the team’s disappointing play.
The sources went on to claim that players who perform poorly are expected to have their central contracts lowered in the first phase, following conversations between top board members and PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi.
