Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) named Sarfaz Ahmad Test captain at a ceremony honouring Pakistan team, the winners of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017, hosted by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at PM House here on Tuesday. The PCB rewarded Sarfraz with the Test captaincy, a fortnight after he led the national team to an elusive Champions Trophy title in England. Underdogs Pakistan trounced India by a record 180-run margin in the final in London on June 18 to lift the Champions Trophy, to the shock and ecstasy of the cricket-mad country.

“I take this opportunity to announce Sarfraz as our Test captain in addition to one-day and Twenty20 captain,” Shaharyar said. The 30-year-old will lead Pakistan in the three-match Test series against Sri Lanka, likely to be held on the neutral venue of the United Arab Emirates in October. This will be the first time in three years when the Men in Green will have a single captain for all three formats of the game. Sarfraz, Pakistan’s 32nd Test captain, took over the captaincy in the 20-over format after a disappointing 2016 World T20 where the Shahid Afridi-led unit was knocked out of the competition in the opening stage. The Karachi-born wicketkeeper-batsman then became the ODI captain as well when Azhar Ali resigned in February this year. Sarfraz has led Pakistan in nine one-day internationals since last year, winning seven and losing two. He has led in eight Twenty20s, winning seven and losing just one. Sarfraz said leading Pakistan in all three formats was a great honour. “I am honoured to be appointed Test captain,” he said during the ceremony. “I will do my best to lift the team in all three formats and will not rest on Champions Trophy laurels.”

Sarfraz’s appointment had been expected ever since chief selector Inzamamul Haq expressed a desire to see one captain across all formats. And it became all but inevitable he led Pakistan all the way to a stunning, against-the-odds triumph at the ICC Champions Trophy in June. Sarfraz is also one of a handful of Pakistan players whose place in the starting XI is assured in all three formats. Even before he took over as Pakistan’s limited-overs captain, he had plenty of leadership experience, having led the Under-19 side to a memorable World Cup win in 2006. He has also been Quetta Gladiators’ captain in the Pakistan Super League since the tournament’s inception, and has led them to successive runners-up finishes.

PM praises team’s performance: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the host of the event, praised the cricket team’s performance in the Champion’s Trophy, saying: “You are the real heroes, you brought honour home.” He expressed hope that the cricketers sitting in front of him would go on to make history like their predecessors. He also likened the condition of the team after their initial humiliation against arch-rivals India in the first match of the tournament to the condition of the country in 2013, when the PML-N came into power. He also regaled the audience with cricket stories from his life, remarking at one point that he was more distraught at being refused to play cricket at a ground he frequented in his youth than he had been by the Panamagate JIT. The Prime Minister also frequently used cricketing metaphors, seemingly to brush off the mounting political pressure on him. He said he would not tolerate too many bouncers and would send them for fours and sixes whenever he got the chance. Sharif rewarded every member of the Trophy winning team with a prize of 10 million rupees ($100,000) while members of the team management received five million ($50,000).

Addressing the ceremony, Pakistan Super League chairman Najam Sethi, once gain, boasted and claimed that the West Indies and Sri Lankan cricket teams would visit Pakistan after the World XI event in September. “These are not just promises, actual negotiations are underway and you will see the results soon,” maintained Sethi.

Published in Daily Times, July 5^th  , 2017.