Losing captaincy should not be a big deal for Babar Azam: Mudassar Nazar

Former Pakistan cricketer Mudassar Nazar believes that the Men in Green’s limited-overs captain, Babar Azam, should not be too worried if he loses the captaincy in the future.

While speaking to PakPassion in an exclusive interview, Nazar said that captaincy comes with its own challenges and hazards.

“It depends on the individual as we have seen with many top-class cricketers. Captaincy can inspire cricketers to become better players as was the case in Graeme Smith’s case who became something else when he became captain. Babar is a tough character and he has captained sides before, as he did when he was captain for the Under-16s and also the Under-19s. So, captaincy is not something new for him,” said Nazar.

“Obviously, captaining the national team comes with its own challenges and hazards, especially when we talk about Pakistan but let’s hope he will get accustomed to that as well. However, if we find that captaincy doesn’t work for him like it didn’t for Kapil Dev or Ian Botham, the PCB can always take away the captaincy from him and that shouldn’t be big deal for Babar,” he added.

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Azam is constantly compared with Indian skipper and star batsman Virat Kohli which, according to Nazar, is nonsense.

“Pakistan supporters dearly need a hero they can believe in and I feel that Babar Azam has all the capabilities to make them happy. For some strange reason, many keep on comparing him to Virat Kohli which is nonsense because right now, the only comparison of Kohli is with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar. Babar will continue to grow and become a great himself, but it will take time,” he said.

“I believe he is working hard to improve himself further as there was a time when he was a little suspect outside the off-stump and would frequently get caught in the slips or be caught behind. He has already got a Test hundred in Australia and should he get another in England later this summer then he would be all set to move to greater heights in future,” he concluded.