On Sunday, March 31, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) officially announced the return of Babar Azam as the captain of the Pakistan cricket team in ODIs and T20Is.
Babar had stepped down from the role of captain from all formats following Pakistan's disappointing 2023 World Cup campaign, where they were ousted in the group stage itself.
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Shan Masood was appointed as the captain in Tests, while Shaheen Afridi, who had led Lahore Qalandars to consecutive titles in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in 2022 and 2023, was named as the T20I captain. No one was officially announced as the ODI captain.
However, Pakistan lost their first series under Shaheen's regime against New Zealand by a 4-1 scoreline in January.
Over the past few weeks, a lot of steam surrounding the speculated change of guard had been accumulating, with Babar reportedly on PCB's radar to return just months after resigning as captain.
Now, according to a report from Pakistani media outlet Express News (h/t Farid Khan), the reason Shaheen was sacked as captain was because he is a bowler. The PCB reportedly informed Shaheen that batters are better captains as bowlers.
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This has been a prevalent stereotype in cricket. Most captains since the inception of the sport have been batsmen, but does that necessarily mean that bowlers can't be good captains?
The most recent example is Australia's Pat Cummins, who has captained his nation in 43 matches across ODIs and Tests, winning 29 of those games. He also led Australia to the ICC World Test Championship and the World Cup, both in 2023.
Legendary Pakistani bowling all-rounder Imran Khan is another prominent example that bowlers can be great captains, too. He led Pakistan to their first-ever World Cup title in 1992.
The Sporting News lists some of the best bowling captains the cricket world has seen:
Five most successful bowling captains of all-time across all formats (Tests, ODIs, T20Is)
| Player | Team | Span | Matches | Won | Lost | Draw | Tied | N/R | W/L ratio |
| Imran Khan | Pakistan | 1982-1992 | 189 | 89 | 67 | 26 | 1 | 4 | 1.328 |
| Wasim Akram | Pakistan | 1993-2000 | 134 | 78 | 49 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1.592 |
| Shaun Pollock | South Africa | 2000-2007 | 124 | 74 | 39 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1.897 |
| Mashrafe Mortaza | Bangladesh | 2009-2020 | 117 | 61 | 53 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1.151 |
| Daniel Vettori | New Zealand | 2004-2011 | 142 | 60 | 62 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 0.968 |
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