Pakistan is out of the Champions Trophy at the earliest stage of the tournament by losing both matches consecutively to New Zealand and India. This has questioned team’s credibility as well as Mohammad Rizwan’s captaincy potential. He took over as the White ball captain from star batter Babar Azam in October 2024. His first match as the captain was against Australia where Pakistan won the 3-match ODI series by 2-1.

“Me and Saud tried to build a partnership and it took a lot of time, But after that, the shot selection was poor and that’s where they got a chance to take our wickets. After that, our middle order maybe couldn’t (handle) the pressure and we couldn’t manage. The middle order was not good enough. As far as the match is concerned, you are disappointed of course.” He said.

Rizwan’s captaincy record

After winning the first White ball series as captain against Australia, Pakistan was white washed in the 3 match T20 series. Later when Pakistan toured Zimbabwe for the 3 match series for ODI and T20 each, Rizwan managed to lead his men to victory for both the series by 2-1. Following a tour to South Africa later in December, Pakistan faced defeat in the 3 match T20 series but managed to claim victory in the ODI series. Also in the Tri-Nations’ series against New Zealand and South Africa, Pakistan faced defeat in the finals from New Zealand by 5 wickets with 28 balls remaining.

Why was Rizwan made captain?

Rizwan got the captaincy by replacing Babar Azam due to poor performance of the latter. Also Rizwan scored 171 runs against Bangladesh in the first Test match. He scopred 51 runs in the second innings being the highest scorer for pakistan in both the innings.

Defeat in the Champions Trophy

Pakistan faced defeat from both India and New Zealand which led to their exclusion from the Champions Trophy campaign. Pakistan’s captain Mohammad Rizwan scored 46 runs in 77 balls against India. He could not manage to create an impact in this Champions Trophy.