Sarfaraz Ahmed's stint as captain has come to an end and it is highly probable that the same can be said for his international career. While the Pakistan team under a new management setup is occupied with the ongoing tour of Australia, Sarfaraz has been left to contemplate where his playing career will go from here. Here, we pause and take a look a back at a career that achieved more than most ever did in a green shirt, as well as where we go from here with two new captains and one supreme commander in the latest, gripping episode of the drama that is Pakistani cricket.
Early struggles and breakthrough
Sarfaraz first came to prominence in 2006 when he led Pakistan to victory in the Under-19 World Cup beating arch-rivals India in a gripping final. His leadership capabilities were evident from an early age and the experience would undoubtedly serve him well in the later stages of his career. His performance earned him a call-up to the national side the following year, however between 2007 and 2011 he struggled to dislodge Kamran Akmal as the team's incumbent wicket-keeper. Kamran's erratic form with the bat and more so behind the stumps, saw Sarfaraz come back into the side and make his first impression at the senior level when he played a match-winning knock in the 2012 Asia Cup final. Even then it was not until 2014 when Sarfaraz finally cemented his place in the national side after coming in for the injured Adnan Akmal.
From 2014-2016, Sarfaraz was arguably Pakistan's best all-format batsmen scoring 5 centuries in that period and being included in the Word Test Team in 2015. He starred for Pakistan during the 2015 World Cup, coming off the bench to solve Pakistan's opening woes with back to back Man of the Match displays. He continued to have success whenever handed the captaincy reigns, leading his franchise Quetta Gladiators to back to back finals in the Pakistan Super League in 2016 and 2017, only to be hampered at the final hurdle by the hesitancy of the franchise's foreign players to travel to Pakistan for the most important game of the tournament. Nonetheless his efforts saw him awarded with the Pakistan T20 captaincy where he led Pakistan to a record 11 consecutive series wins.
Sarfaraz's success in the shortest format saw him ascend to the rank of ODI Captain where he immediately led Pakistan to one of the greatest triumphs in their cricketing history by beating India by a record margin in the final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy. Sarfaraz enjoyed a memorable tournament that included a gutsy, albeit fortuitous match-winning innings against Sri Lanka to help Pakistan reach the semi-final stage. The triumph saw Sarfaraz lauded for creating a cohesive team environment where young players could thrive, a rarity for historically senior-oriented and divided Pakistani dressing rooms of yore.
Fitness issues and criticism
After his triumphant return from the Champions Trophy, Sarfaraz was given the unenviable task of replacing Pakistan's most statistically successful Test Captain Misbah-ul-Haq. The task was made even harder with Pakistan's best test batsman, Younis Khan, retiring along with Misbah. Leading a team missing its pillars, Sarfaraz was unable to replicate his success as captain in white-ball cricket in the game's longest format. Sporadic triumphs, notably a drawn series in England and beating Australia in the UAE, were overshadowed by 'home' series defeats to Sri Lanka and New Zealand in the UAE, an impregnable and unconquered fortress under Misbah for 7 years. His critics grew and so did the number of things to criticize. Chief among these was his fitness, which seemed to be affecting his batting and keeping, while more personal criticism targeted the way he looked and spoke.
Sarfaraz's critics even hypocritically maligned him for promoting younger batsmen up the order despite their usual criticism of senior players selfishly coming higher up the order themselves and curtailing the development of lesser experienced players. Many referred to Sarfaraz as a specialist captain who added no value to the team, his detractors claimed the team's success in the limited overs format was in spite of him rather than because of him. However, his predecessors were unable to guide the team to the same results. Under Misbah and his recommended successor Azhar Ali, Pakistan fell to 9th in the ODI rankings whereas Sarfaraz took them up to 5th place. While under Shahid Afridi's captaincy the team was knocked out of the 2016 World T20 during the group stage. Sarfaraz took the reins of the same team immediately after and won 11 consecutive T20 series on the trot along with the Champions Trophy. He was also slated for constantly barking instructions from behind the stumps though that is precisely what an ill-disciplined outfit like Pakistan, which is prone to complacency needed to achieve the success it did.
However, the straw that broke, well almost broke, the camel's back was when he made an exasperated but irresponsible comment on the field, in reference to a constantly fortuitous South African batsman, the remark was unbefitting of a Pakistan captain. As a result, a suspension was dutifully doled out by the ICC, which may have marked the beginning of the end for Sarfaraz but with a lack of captaincy alternatives and the World Cup around the corner, he retained his post. The World Cup saw Pakistan miss a semi-final berth by a whisker and find momentum a little too late in the tournament, after playing the wrong line-up in earlier games. To their credit they did beat both the finalists earlier in the tournament but it was too little, too late for Sarfaraz and his team.
An unceremonious axing
Speculation was rife that a typical post-World Cup overhaul was coming, with Sarfaraz expected to lose the captaincy in Test cricket and possibly in the ODI format too. Rather surprisingly, he was retained across all formats and the revamp was limited to the newly appointed Head Coach-cum-Chief Selector Misbah-ul-Haq and Bowling Coach Waqar Younis. The axing and handing of the captaincy, along with pretty much every other decision related to Pakistani cricket now lay in Misbah's hands. His first order of business was recalling the notorious duo of Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal, two players who Sarfaraz did not want back in the team as they were known to hamper the team environment. The repeated failures of the two recalled players - Akmal made consecutive golden ducks while Shehzad averaged 8.5 - proved disastrous for the Pakistani top-order. The team went on to be clean swept in the home T20 series against Sri Lanka.
It seems to absolve his calamitous selection decisions, Misbah has saddled the blame on Sarfaraz, Pakistan's top scorer in the ill-fated series, not only costing him the captaincy but also his place in the team across all formats. With the T20 World Cup less than a year away, the decision to sack Sarfaraz from the shortest format is especially questionable, considering Pakistan won 11 consecutive series on the trot on their way to becoming the current top ranked T20 side.
The Future
What is even more debatable than Sarfaraz's axing is the appointment of a novice captain, Babar Azam, as his replacement. There are fears that the burden of captaincy may hamper Pakistan's only world class batsmen considering his bashful nature and leadership inexperience. It is worth bearing in mind though that Babar has made a career out of proving his critics wrong and the captaincy might just help take his game to the next level similar to New Zealand's Kane Williamson and India's Virat Kohli. On the other hand, if Babar does crumble under the pressure of captaincy, he can always do away with the burden and go back to piling on the runs similar to past greats such as Javed Miandad, Younis Khan and even Sachin Tendulkar.
Babar's appointment should also satisfy a large portion of fans who yearn to see him as captain and would disapprove of any other alternative, a scenario exacerbated by the dearth of available options. Yet the brash decision-making on Misbah's part, seems rather uncharacteristic of a man whose playing days were characterized by a measured, safety first approach. The safer and perhaps wiser decision would have been to try out this experiment in a different format and not with the T20 World Cup just around the corner.
The decision to relieve Sarfaraz of the Test captaincy is simpler to understand and is in fact along expected lines given both his captaincy results and personal performance. However, his replacement Azhar Ali, has been out of form for the last 2 years, averaging under 30 over 13 Tests. In the last year alone, his average is a paltry 10. He also happens to be 34 years old with well-documented knee issues and his appointment seems to be of the stop-gap variety until either Babar matures enough to take over the Test team or another leader emerges within the dressing room. It is worth noting that Misbah himself recommended Azhar, widely viewed as his protégé, to replace him as captain after the 2015 World Cup. The decision should ensure a good working relationship between the two and afford Misbah the opportunity to further exert his control over the team. Safety first indeed.
As another chapter of Pakistan cricket comes to a close with the end of Sarfaraz's captaincy tenure we find ourselves approaching a new era with an uncertain outlook. Replacing Sarfaraz will not be as straightforward as some may believe for his captaincy is criminally underrated in a team with a severe dearth of leaders. Though he was not completely devoid of tactical and leadership flaws, he has served as one of the most astute Pakistan captain's in recent history.
On the other hand, while there is a feeling of apprehension that one man, Misbah, holds the kind of absolute power not seen since the days of Imran Khan, there is also excitement at the prospect of seeing a young prodigy thrive even further in his new role. Even if Babar does not succeed as captain but still goes onto become one of the countries' greatest ever players, it would be worth remembering the Champions Trophy winning captain who created the dressing room environment which enabled Babar to flourish in the first place. Excitement and greatest ever though, are words that are respectively seldom and never used in the same sentence as Azhar Ali. Let's just stick with apprehension for that one.
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