PCB president Ramiz Raja has said that he doesn’t prefer to make decisions related to team selection and he leaves it completely up to the captain, even though if he wants to make those decisions, his presidential position allows him to do that.
According to Ramiz Raja, who was in conversation with leading Pakistani newspaper Dawn, there are some countries in world cricket at the moment that are running cricket like football where the management has a lot of power and the captain, who actually has to make decisions on the ground, doesn’t have a lot of power.
Ramiz insisted if a team doesn’t have a strong captain in the game of cricket, it’s very hard for such a team to progress because it’s not possible for cricket to be run from outside the ground.
The game of cricket has to be run on the ground by the captain and hence, the captain should have the decision-making authority. Ramiz also said a captain can be held accountable for a team’s performances only if he is given authority.
Ramiz Raja has hinted that Babar Azam has sole authority to make Pakistan team selection decisions
There were a few question marks over the decision of the Pakistan captain Babar Azam recently when he went with a young middle order batsman Salman Ali Agha in the first test against Sri Lanka at Galle and dropped a veteran like Fawad Alam after Fawad had just one bad series against Australia.
Salman Ali Agha didn’t quite perform with the bat in either of the two innings against Sri Lanka, but Pakistan won the game and Babar himself played a key role in the victory with a hundred and a fifty in the first and the second innings respectively. Another young Pakistan batsman Abdullah Shafique also scored a match-winning hundred in the second innings.
Ramiz Raja played down any criticism on Babar’s selection decisions and hinted that the captain has sole authority in the team to make decisions and there is no interference from PCB.
