Babar Azam's father asks son to respect Imad, Amir after becoming captain

Azam Siddiqui, the father of Babar Azam, has urged his son to respect Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim, who recently came out of retirement to represent Pakistan leading upto the T20 World Cup.

Babar, 29, was reappointed Pakistan's white-ball captain and his father expressed his jubilation over his appointment.

On his official Instagram account, he wrote: "The most important thing is that the people of the authority gave honour and respect again.

"Now they are echoes that the team will not be united but I have said to Babar to forget the past. Amir and Imad are older than and senior to you, meet them with respect and honour their opinion.

Babar will lead the team in One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and T20Is while Shan Masood will continue as the red-ball skipper.

“Babar Azam appointed as white-ball captain,” the PCB posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“Following unanimous recommendation from the PCB’s selection committee, Chairman PCB Mohsin Naqvi has appointed Babar Azam as white-ball (ODI and T20I) captain of the Pakistan men's cricket team.”

Babar met with the chairman of PCB, Mohsin Naqvi, to discuss the plans ahead of the T20 World Cup after which the current Interior Minister decided to give him the realm of the team.

Following the conclusion of the ICC World Cup 2023, Babar was removed from the captaincy across formats with Shaheen Shah Afridi taking the realm of the shorter format and Shan Masood becoming Test captain while no skipper for ODIs was announced.

Shaheen only led the team in one T20I series which was played against New Zealand in January 2023. The Green Shirts lost the five-match series 1-4 which cast doubts on the left-armer’s abilities as a captain.

It is worth mentioning that Babar Azam has so far captained Pakistan in five international tournaments — T20 World Cup 2021 and 2022, Asia Cup 2022 and 2023, and World Cup 2023 — but the Green Shirts have not won any ICC or Asia Cup titles under his leadership.