Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has finally announced the appointment of Babar Azam as the ODI captain. Earlier, Azam was named Pakistan’s T20I skipper but his appointment as the ODI captain came on Wednesday.

Babar Azam replaces Sarfaraz Ahmed as captain of the Pakistani cricket team for the limited-overs format. While Azhar Ali takes charge of the test team after Ahmed was sacked due to poor performances

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During the same, PCB also released the list of centrally contracted players for the upcoming 2020-21 season.

Azhar Ali, Babar Azham, and Shaheen Afridi are the only 3 players to receive top tier contracts by the Pakistan Cricket Board.  Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, and Mohammad Hasnain receive their maiden Central contracts for the Pakistan Cricket Board for their excellent performances.  Pakistan veterans Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz have been excluded from the contract list along with batsman Hasan Ali.

As per ICC’s Future Tour Programme, Pakistan is scheduled to play 20 T20 Internationals next season. They are also scheduled to play just six ODIs in the same period.  The Pakistani national will be donning their whites for nine Tests in the 2020-21 season.

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The Pakistan Cricket team head coach Misbah-ul-Haq has congratulated the duo on the same. He also revealed how the Pakistan Cricket Board has taken the right decision.

PCB’s press release stated,  “I want to congratulate Azhar Ali and Babar Azam for getting captaincy extensions. This is absolutely the right decision as they also require certainty and clarity on their future roles. I am sure they will now start looking to the future. We will start planning so that they can build sides that can perform at the expected levels.”