Will Azhar Ali's decision to quit ODI cricket cause problems for him in Test matches?

[Savak]

I believe when he started to play ODI's in domestic cricket and later for Pakistan, it had a positive impact on his test match batting where his strike rate in test matches had improved, he had developed release shots and was able to up the scoring rate when required.

Pakistan don't play much test cricket anyways and i wonder whether the inactivity will hurt his game for Pakistan in test matches. He better play a lot of 4 days games to keep his skills sharp. Also there will now no longer be any more excuses for him to turn up a little bit heavy, he will have more time to work on his fitness and his batting behind the scenes.

 

[cricketInsight]

On the other hand, it could be said that he may have tried to clear the way to test captaincy following Mohsin Khan's cue.

Now that he is not playing the shorter format, he can claim to focus on test cricket relieving Sarfraz of the stress. And he does qualify as a 'senior'.

 

[hadi123]

No. Infact, in hindsight for players like him it should cause an increase in fortunes although since being dropped from ODI's he's done awful in Tests. But for players like him, playing ODI's could affect him negatively as in Tests he might start playing at balls he should be leaving due to ODI cricket. Same thing happened with Alastair Cook, and Azhar Ali is similar type of player to him.

 

[Pakhs]

Rubbish post he was not in any ODI side for over a year anyway. His decision makes no difference at all hopefully this will make him a better TEST player which he said was the reason behind this.

 

[topspin]

It depends on how much cricket he plays outside international cricket especially first class cricket outside Pakistan given that we don't play many tests in a year. We know for a fact he won't be playing in T20 leagues because he isn't a good LOI player, so it's important he can take whatever opportunities to play FC cricket because he needs it to maintain match form. Hope he gets offers from at least two of Aus, SA and England's FC sides.

 

[aukhan]

Azhar as Test Captain is not a bad option. He definitely merits a place more than Shafiq and Sarfraz.