"Sits well with some people, and it doesn't sit well with others" - Ricky Ponting hopes Babar Azam learnt his captaincy lessons ahead of T20 WC 2024
Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting hopes to see Babar Azam learn from his past captaincy mistakes heading into the T20 World Cup 2024. The Tasmanian explained why the best players don't necessarily make the best captains.
The 29-year-old returned as the T20I captain, replacing Shaheen Shah Afridi, who skippered only in one series. Babar had resigned from the role following the 2023 World Cup, where Pakistan failed to make it out of the group stage for the second consecutive edition.
On the episode of the ICC Review, Ponting shed light on what makes the best captains is their unrelenting focus on getting better at what they do.
"Captaincy just sits well with some people and it doesn't sit well with others.
"We've seen it through the years that some of the best players that have ever played the game have not necessarily made the best captains, and the thing that makes some of the very best players so good is how focused they are on what they need to do to get better and to be the best and find a way every day to get better."
The former player added that captaincy is the job of balancing everything perfectly, which only a few can do.
"And when you are captain, you can't do that. You've got to actually compartmentalise what you're doing, look after your own game, look after all the guys around you.
"So some guys can manage that better than others. I reckon Babar, when he first started, I had that feeling that he... because if you look at his record, his numbers went down on the back of it. So I think he might have learned a bit from that."
Babar had also captained Pakistan during the 2022 T20 World Cup when they made it to the final but lost to England.
Babar Azam's indifferent recent form
Meanwhile, the Lahore-born cricketer's form with the bat has been indifferent, of late. He had a solitary half-century in four innings in the home series against New Zealand. The subsequent three-game rubber against Ireland saw him register scores of 57, 0 and 75 as Pakistan bounced back from 0-1 to win the series.
He went on to score 32 and 36 in the two completed matches against England in the four-game series, but Pakistan lost both games. The 2009 World T20 champions will open their campaign against USA on June 6 in New York.