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Should Shan Masood be replaced as Test captain?

Should Shan Masood be replaced as Test captain?

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FearlessRoar

FearlessRoar

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Pakistan finishes last in the WTC 2023-25 standings, ending a disappointing World Test Championship cycle with just five wins from six series.

Although the team reached this point in an unusual way, it may have led to the right outcome. Shan Masood’s appointment as Test captain wasn’t the result of a carefully planned decision to promote an experienced player. Instead, it felt more like trying out different names and hoping one would work.

But in some ways, this approach wasn’t entirely wrong. It at least ensured the captaincy wasn’t decided in the usual “autopilot” way that we often see in cricket today. Pakistan didn’t make Babar Azam captain just because he was their best batter across all formats and had a secure spot in the team. Shan, on the other hand, wasn’t chosen because he was guaranteed a place in the team, but because of a lack of other options.

Shan Masood as Test Captain​

  • Matches: 12
  • Wins: 3
  • Losses: 9
  • Draws: 0
With these numbers, is it time to rethink Shan Masood's role as Test captain? Should he be replaced, or should he get another chance to lead the team?
 
Unlike, the coaches or chief-selectors, he actually did get the long-rope and basically captained through most of the WTC cycle. And the results are there for everyone to see.

The series loss at home to Bangladesh. in particular is an embarrassment I will never live down.

Should be sacked and replaced by Rizwan.
 
Rizwan should be test captain for a bit.

Shan Masood is worse than a Rohit Sharma.
 
During his short stint he's had two chairman, two coaches, multiple different strategies at home to try and win, the alleged king batsman can't buy a run and our bowlers have chickened out of test cricket.

The results are awful but how much is he to blame here?

Test cricket is just something the PCB have paid lip service to. We still can compete in ODI and we will.compete again in T20. There is no point at all burdening a young player with the test captaincy of what is essentially a sinking ship. There is also no point burdening a multi format player with additional pressure in a format where we will likely lose the majority of the matches.

Stick with Shan or bring in an experienced FC player who has no aspirations of playing t20 or leagues and seperate the test team from LOI teams completely.
 
Shan's done as a batsman and a player. He has had more than enough chances. He has lost tests from winning positions multiple time. He is just like Zimbabar.

He should be kicked out as soon as possible.

Rizwan is the only player who makes team on merit and could become a decent captain as well.
 
Remove him asap

Make Rizwan captain for next WTC cycle

Also make our players to play in domestic pitches so they can play better in these rank turners
 
Shan should be replaced as captain but nothing will be sorted until and unless there is change in the structure and the right people are appointed/employed..

Have been saying this from day one..
 
A different captain will not make much of a difference given the weak team.

The bigger question is whether Shan justifies a place in the team, given his age and performances?
 
Concerned said:
A different captain will not make much of a difference given the weak team.

The bigger question is whether Shan justifies a place in the team, given his age and performances?
Click to expand...
He's never justified a place in team on merit, in his entire career
 
Rana said:
Who should be the captain?
Click to expand...
Has to be someone who merits a place in team 1st.

That list is very short. So unfortunately it probably has be saud shakeel.

Rizwan struggles doing keeping and batting so should be kept away from captaincy
 
Test cricket is dead in Pakistan, Shan has strong network so not going anywhere rather other ten players has to make up for him.

T20 leagues have destroyed Pakistan cricket , the current veterans all strayed out due to various reasons e.g

SSA, Imam, Fakhar, Shadab, Faheem, HassanAli, Nawaz, Imad, Ifti, HSohail these were our core players but they fizzled out before time leaving big voids in the side
 
Amjid Javed said:
Has to be someone who merits a place in team 1st.

That list is very short. So unfortunately it probably has be saud shakeel.

Rizwan struggles doing keeping and batting so should be kept away from captaincy
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Mate when you have people in charge who don't merit their position, this filters down to the players...

How can any sports team survive let alone flourish when you have unqualified people at the helm?
 
IMMY69 said:
Mate when you have people in charge who don't merit their position, this filters down to the players...

How can any sports team survive let alone flourish when you have unqualified people at the helm?
Click to expand...
100% if the captain, coach etc.. aren't doing their jobs it definitely filters into the dressing room. Then you have senior players like babar and rizwan who don't step it up with performances either.

The rot set in when Shan was made captain. The PCB clearly don't care and will keep making these silly mistakes.

Proof of that was in the chopping and changing of coaches every other series.
 
Yes. I believe he should be replaced.

Pakistan finished at the bottom of WTC table under his captaincy. Time for a fresh start I guess.
 
The best thing to have happened to Pakistan cricket just before the start of next WTC cycle. I call this 2nd test loss a blessing in disguise. Now true leader Riz can take over and show us the way.
 
The strategy needs to be looked at by the captain , coach and management where there is a better balance between Bat and Ball and the types of bowlers required according to the surfaces.

Sporting surfaces should be played on throughput the domestic season in order for the cream to rise to the top and for the national team to have the best possible players to select available.

Moving forward the aim should be to target the WTC final.

So far Shan has shown he is an inept captain having had the opposition in trouble 6 or 7 down on 3 occasions at least starting in Aus and at home versus BD and the windies in this Test.

This shows as a captain he doesn't have a plan B to dislodge the tail if Saj and Nomi don't strike and the coach cant come up with solutions either.

Riz would be the best option to take over but playing in 3 formats will take its toll.

It looks more than likely Shan will continue as its unlikely he ll be sacked.
 
He's lost too many games from winning positions. He has lost to Bangladesh and now West Indies at home. If he is not sacked now, it is evidence of corruption. You can't remain captain just because you speak good English. And what good is his education and english when he makes absolutely diabolical decisions as captain under pressure.
 
Pakistan test captaincy is currently a poisoned chalice.

I would hate for a multi format player to take up the pressure of test captaincy during what will be another transition phase. The negativity could filter into the shorter formats where we have important tournaments coming up in the future. Tournaments where Pakistan should be aiming to do well.

If Shan is replaced then it should be with a domestic pro - perhaps someone like Umar Amin or Saad Nasim. You may laugh at the names but will have a few benefits:

1. Won't tar important LOI players with a loser tag.
2. They are single format players and will focus a lot on test cricket.
3. They have a decent awareness of our own domestic cricket and could work well under Aqib.

Basically use some oldies to take the flack while bleeding in youngsters.
 
Amjid Javed said:
Has to be someone who merits a place in team 1st.

That list is very short. So unfortunately it probably has be saud shakeel.

Rizwan struggles doing keeping and batting so should be kept away from captaincy
Click to expand...
You are right man but we need to go one step back.

Is the PCB really in a position that they believe that test cricket actually merits much effort?

I suspect that they are just paying it lip service. I wouldn't want a player like Shakeel who could genuinely be decent in LOIs to be a scapegoat for tests.
 
I'm sure his supporters will say it's easy to blame a captain when the bowlers don't take wickets.

But that's the issue.

He's not a proactive captain and sort of relies on his bowlers to run through teams. On pitches like this, a captain's worth is only determined during those short partnership-building phases when the right field setting or bowling change can apply pressure leading to a wicket.

I think Rizwan was the one guiding him at various points during the matches and pushing him to have aggressive fields. Does that mean Rizwan is the better choice? No clue but it's not a good look for Shan and his ability to read the game.
 
kingusama92 said:
I'm sure his supporters will say it's easy to blame a captain when the bowlers don't take wickets.

But that's the issue.

He's not a proactive captain and sort of relies on his bowlers to run through teams. On pitches like this, a captain's worth is only determined during those short partnership-building phases when the right field setting or bowling change can apply pressure leading to a wicket.

I think Rizwan was the one guiding him at various points during the matches and pushing him to have aggressive fields. Does that mean Rizwan is the better choice? No clue but it's not a good look for Shan and his ability to read the game.
Click to expand...

The biggest downer is Shan's body language the moment things don't go his way. He doesn't know what to do and he spreads the field and allows easy singles. The fact he didn't bring the pacer for so long to break the partnership or even bowled Agha for a few overs is just shocking and shows he is out of his depth. We have lost too many winnable games because of his defensive, cowardly captaincy.

Also don't understand the obsession with playing Abrar, he is the most useless spinner around who is easy work for most teams in test cricket. He doesn't even count as a bowler.
 
Shan Masood's captaincy is a bit like Tim Paine's captaincy.

Not very proactive captaincy.
 
4 test matches lost from these positions:

1738031478474.png
 
Kianig89 said:
@Rana comes off as most knowledgeable poster, so please help us explain all this, from the scorecard it looks Pakistan were in DOMINANT position yet ended up losing.

3 of these games were in home series
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You missed the key point... GREAT ENGLISH SPEAKER he is..

That is the only merit of his captaincy... Shan should not only be replaced but he should never been called back in the team. He is a pathetic batter and his captaincy is right in front of everyone...
 
TBH its time. He has common sense but lacks the x factor. Can't think outside the box. Real question is who should replace him? Can't be Rizzy . He ain't any better. Need someone like sarfaraz.
 
from_da_lost_dim3nsion said:
TBH its time. He has common sense but lacks the x factor. Can't think outside the box. Real question is who should replace him? Can't be Rizzy . He ain't any better. Need someone like sarfaraz.
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Lol Sarfraz has double the losses than he has wins in his captaincy tenure and that too with a stronger team.

Sarfraz is one of the worst player ever.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Much rather prefer a guy who has command over the English and Urdu language instead of someone who has command over now language.

Much rather prefer someone who at least has a basic academic education over someone who hasn’t ever been to school.
 
This fraud along with Aqib needs the sack the raging turner is only applied to hide their shortcomings as they have no clue how to pick 20 wickets so unless it’s a Bunsen the opposition piles up 1000 on Pakistan
 
When your place in the team isn’t secure there will always be questions. Most people appreciate his professionalism, it’s a breath of fresh air from the paendoopana of King Babar. But he has to score runs consistently otherwise this won’t last long. Right now only batter in the Pakistan team who has a secure spot is Rizwan and he’s already captain of the white ball teams so it might make sense to hand over the reigns to Rizwan if Shan isn’t able to score runs consistently.

By supporting spinning pits for pitches in Pakistan, he might be digging his own grave.
 
followed said:
Lol Sarfraz has double the losses than he has wins in his captaincy tenure and that too with a stronger team.

Sarfraz is one of the worst player ever.
Click to expand...
Only in test captaincy. He was a horrible test captain.

However he did well in t20 and odi. People look at his odi record but don't realise that he punched > his weight.

Other teams were just > Pakistan and in hindsight achieving what he achieved in 2019 wc is impressive given nZ and eng wins.

Also the team declining was babar's fault.

People forget that

A) Fakhar as all format opener( Later misbah removed him from test and from t20 opening)

B) Babar as all format no 3 (later misbah promoted babar to open and dropped him to no 4 at test)

C) Hafeez at no 4

D) Imad at no 7 and imad opening t20 bowling which did wonders in 2018

These were all his decisons + Mickey.

Sarfi and hickey's problem was not developing a spin allrounder and opting for hafeez, Malik, Haris, imad and Shadab as your spinners.

However babar was 100x worse.

It's good that aqib and rizwan are fixing this with spin.
 
I don't think Shan has the courage to admit that he needs to take a back seat. It would be better to drop him and send him to play domestic cricket because right now he is just wasting a spot in the top order with his poor batting.
 
All the rumours about shan masood being replaced as a test captain have been quashed he's been given a green light by pcb to continue as a test captain and to lead 25-27 WTC.
 
I am hugely concerned regarding the recent decision by the PCB to appoint Shan Masood as the Test captain again. This move has left many of us puzzled and questioning whether Test cricket is being given the importance it deserves.

Over the past two years, Shan Masood's performances have not particularly stood out as extraordinary or deserving of such a significant role. When we have world-class options within the team, it is baffling to see why we would settle for anything less than the best. We have already suffered making a below average Agha the T20 captain and now we are doing the same thing in test cricket.

I am not here to spread negativity. If Shan proves me wrong, I would be a happy man as Pakistan would be winning. However, the odds are highly against Shan to succeed at any level. I urge Naqvi to reconsider this decision. It is not too late to make a change that could positively impact the team.

Mohammed Rizwan, with his consistent performances and leadership qualities, would make an excellent Test captain. Additionally, having Shaheen Afridi as his deputy would strengthen the leadership team even further.

We have the potential to achieve great things with the right leaders at the helm!
 
gazza619 said:
I am hugely concerned regarding the recent decision by the PCB to appoint Shan Masood as the Test captain again. This move has left many of us puzzled and questioning whether Test cricket is being given the importance it deserves.

Over the past two years, Shan Masood's performances have not particularly stood out as extraordinary or deserving of such a significant role. When we have world-class options within the team, it is baffling to see why we would settle for anything less than the best. We have already suffered making a below average Agha the T20 captain and now we are doing the same thing in test cricket.

I am not here to spread negativity. If Shan proves me wrong, I would be a happy man as Pakistan would be winning. However, the odds are highly against Shan to succeed at any level. I urge Naqvi to reconsider this decision. It is not too late to make a change that could positively impact the team.

Mohammed Rizwan, with his consistent performances and leadership qualities, would make an excellent Test captain. Additionally, having Shaheen Afridi as his deputy would strengthen the leadership team even further.

We have the potential to achieve great things with the right leaders at the helm!
Click to expand...
Shaheen needs to actually play test cricket to be someone's deputy..
 
Shan has averaged 34 with the bat as captain. Could have been worse tbh. He has played some good knocks but I have accepted that he will not go beyond a certain level and continue being the deeply frustrating player that he is. In one innings he will play a knock like he did against South Africa in Cape Town, next innings he will be out for a duck.

Pakistan's test side is in a pretty dire state, so I don't think that stability is the worst thing for them right now. They need players to get settled in their roles so we can start seeing some semblance of consistency. Once this team actually starts looking like a test team, you can give the captaincy to Saud, Rizwan or whoever you think is best suited for the role.

Who knows, maybe having the backing of the board might improve even Shan's performance...not that I'm holding my breath.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
Who knows, maybe having the backing of the board might improve even Shan's performance...not that I'm holding my breath.
Click to expand...
Shan has had the backing and support for many years, I have observed that he has not been able to shine consistently. Given this pattern, I am concerned that another failure may be imminent.
 
gazza619 said:
Shan has had the backing and support for many years, I have observed that he has not been able to shine consistently. Given this pattern, I am concerned that another failure may be imminent.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say that. In last year's central contract list there was an asterisk next to his name that said something to the effect of 'PCB contract subject to captaincy.' Even in this year's list he was in category D. Which also shows how little PCB actually care about test cricket.

Shan is on borrowed time as it is. I don't see him lasting more than a year. But he is an experienced player in the team and can be a good batsman on his day so he's not the worst choice to be a transitional captain. Plus, it's not like there are alot of openers/top-order batsmen waiting to take his place. Saim Ayub was just dropped from the test squad too and Abdullah Shafique has generally looked worse than Shan in recent times.
 
RidiculousMan said:
Tbh in Test Cricket a 90 is preferable and likely to be a match winning innings than 30 three times.

These days though Pakistan will take any runs.
Click to expand...

I was about to say. A 90 is far more conducive to winning games than 3 x low scores of 30 but I'm not surprised to read this from Gazza as his reading of the game is so off.
 
gazza619 said:
I am hugely concerned regarding the recent decision by the PCB to appoint Shan Masood as the Test captain again. This move has left many of us puzzled and questioning whether Test cricket is being given the importance it deserves.

Over the past two years, Shan Masood's performances have not particularly stood out as extraordinary or deserving of such a significant role. When we have world-class options within the team, it is baffling to see why we would settle for anything less than the best. We have already suffered making a below average Agha the T20 captain and now we are doing the same thing in test cricket.

I am not here to spread negativity. If Shan proves me wrong, I would be a happy man as Pakistan would be winning. However, the odds are highly against Shan to succeed at any level. I urge Naqvi to reconsider this decision. It is not too late to make a change that could positively impact the team.

Mohammed Rizwan, with his consistent performances and leadership qualities, would make an excellent Test captain. Additionally, having Shaheen Afridi as his deputy would strengthen the leadership team even further.

We have the potential to achieve great things with the right leaders at the helm!
Click to expand...
Pakistan under Rizwan lost an odi series to the WI and were winless in the CT
:haha
 
When the PCB decided to downgrade him from B to D, i was under the impression that he was being replaced as test captain, the decision to downgrade him becomes more diabolical. Is this the respect the PCB wants to give to their Test captain?
 
RidiculousMan said:
Tbh in Test Cricket a 90 is preferable and likely to be a match winning innings than 30 three times.

These days though Pakistan will take any runs.
Click to expand...
I agree 90 is potentially a match winning/saving knock. With Shan you get one good score followed by 3/4 bad scores which is poor.
 
Tbf, I believe the intention was to remove him and make Agha the captain, but after what Agha did in Asia cup, they went with status quo. One would say but that was T20 and here we are talking about TESTs, to which I would say we are talking about Pakistan/PCB, they struggle with Recency bias, and lack any logic. You never know Agha has a good series compared to Shan and next thing you know they do make him the TEST captain.
 
Shani led us to last place in WTC 23-25, as well as some all time low moments for Pak such as the losses against BD and WI at home. He also has not too many individual performances to speak of. The series win against eng should not hide the fact that he’s delivered poor results and matched it with sub par batting performances.

His saving grace though is that he’s a decent human being and a much more eloquent speaker than saud, babar, agha. Is that enough to keep him as captain? Tbf no.
 
ezy9 said:
Tbf, I believe the intention was to remove him and make Agha the captain, but after what Agha did in Asia cup, they went with status quo. One would say but that was T20 and here we are talking about TESTs, to which I would say we are talking about Pakistan/PCB, they struggle with Recency bias, and lack any logic. You never know Agha has a good series compared to Shan and next thing you know they do make him the TEST captain.
Click to expand...

Its too premature to make Agha the test captain, T20 captaincy does not qualify one for test captaincy. What are Agha's captaincy credentials in domestic cricket to merit test captaincy? Masood can justify his test captaincy given that he has captained in Pakistan's domestic cricket and county cricket.
 
Savak said:
Its too premature to make Agha the test captain, T20 captaincy does not qualify one for test captaincy. What are Agha's captaincy credentials in domestic cricket to merit test captaincy? Masood can justify his test captaincy given that he has captained in Pakistan's domestic cricket and county cricket.
Click to expand...
Agreed 100%. But unfortunately its PCB we are talking about, if you become Chairman's Yes man, you get blessed beyond your expectations.

Personally I would go with someone young and make Rizwan VC.
 
Forget being a captain or not, he doesn't warrant a spot in the lineup or squad.

Test career:
42 matches, 30.12 AVG

This is a guy that made his debut way back in 2013 and is still around with such pedestrian numbers. Zero POTM award in his career. I don't even know how he is still getting selected let alone being in a position to captain.
 
If a player can’t make it to the team as a player, how can they be a captain? The standards of Pakistan cricket deteriorate everyday without fail.
 
If agha had been in decent form with bat even if he lost asia cup final he could have been a choice for all format captain. Now issue is new management wantedto get away from Riz Bar in long run , but to replace Shan only alternative is Rizwan.

So I guess they want to see one final series and see how it goes.

After that can revisit captaincy.
 
Unless your captain is Mike Brearley or Fleming(although Fleming was a good enough batter as well) level tactician/leader, he should not be a specialist captain.
Goes for both Shan and Agha. Rizwan merits a place in ODI and tests but the problem is he abuses his power into getting his coveted no.4 where he doesn't belong.
 
Need to pick the best eleven and then appoint the best captain from that bunch.
Captain automatically getting into the team makes him clumsy and lazy.
Although Shan has done okay as a batter, it's his captaincy that has been out of sorts.
 
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