Delhi: Former Pakistan opener Salman Butt has spoken openly on the future leadership of his national cricket team. He has advocated making Shan Masood the captain instead of Babar Azam in all formats.

The former cricketer said on his YouTube channel, “It is such that despite having the skill, the players are not able to perform properly. There are some players who do not have any strategy to plan, but still they have a lot of passion. To calm this passion, I will definitely make Shan Masood the captain.”

You may recall that Shan was appointed as the Pakistan Test captain after Babar Azam decided to step down following the team's early exit from the 2023 ODI World Cup. However, Babar was reinstated as the white-ball captain ahead of the recently-concluded 2024 T20 World Cup, but the decision did not yield the expected results.

Shan Masood, who is currently leading Pakistan's Test team, also captains Yorkshire in the County Championship and Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League (PSL). Azam resigned from Pakistan's captaincy in all formats after a poor performance in the ODI World Cup. Shaheen led the T20 team for a while, but was removed after losing the series in New Zealand.

After Mohsin Naqvi became the PCB chairman, Babar was again given the white-ball captaincy, but in the 2024 T20 World Cup, he had to exit from the group stage after losing to the USA and India.

PCB chairman is going to take the decision

Naqvi plans to consult white-ball head coach Gary Kirsten and former players before deciding on the new captain. Other candidates for the captaincy include Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Rizwan. Babar's T20 World Cup performance was also criticized, in which he scored 122 runs in 4 matches at an average of 40.66 but his strike rate was 101.66.