Babar Azam refuses captaincy of LPL franchise Colombo Strikers, didn’t want to disturb team structure: Report

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam refused the chance to captain Colombo Strikers franchise in his debut Lanka Premier League (LPL) 2023 season. Azam was offered the captaincy role but he wants to play in the league as a batter only. Also, he may not be available for the full season and leave LPL early for the ODI series against Afghanistan.

Azam's manager Talha Aisham confirmed the development. With few days to go in the league’s opener, Colombo Strikers have named wicketkeeper-batter Niroshan Dickwella as their captain.

“I feel extremely honoured to be the Captain of the Colombo Strikers. We have a terrific side with several superstars such as Babar Azam, Naseem Shah and Matheesha Pathirana. We’ll certainly give the freedom to all the cricketers to play their natural game. We are looking forward to a fantastic season,” Dickwella said after getting the captaincy role. Colombo Strikers will begin their campaign on July 31 at R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo against B-Love Kandy. So far, the Jaffna franchise has dominated the league. With players like Azam and Shah in their ranks, Strikers will back themselves to produce a better result.

Azam-led Pakistan side recently created history on Sri Lankan soil. Pakistan handed Sri Lanka their heaviest defeat at home by an innings and 222 runs to complete cleansweep in the two-match Test series. The massive win also helped them climb to the top of World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 points table.

“Very proud to win the series, all credit to the boys and the coaching staff who've worked hard from the last 3-4 months. Everyone put in their efforts for us to win the series. We ticked all the boxes, we worked hard on batting and fielding, not a lot of it in the pitch for the pacers, but they bowled really well in both Tests,” Azam said in the post-match presentation on July 27.

“This is a team game, Saud (Shakeel) in the first Test and Abdullah (Shafique) here were outstanding. We are taking it series by series and will try to perform at our best. We have a plan, we decided to play positive cricket and play up to our strengths, we want an improvement of at least 5-10%, it's not easy to win here, but I think we dominated them in both matches,” he added.