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January 1, 2025

2024: A Year of Historic Highs and Lows for Pakistan Cricket

2024: A Year of Historic Highs and Lows for Pakistan Cricket
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The year 2024 brought many highs, lows, and changes to the Pakistan Cricket team. From historic losses to historic wins, this year truly changed the shape of the Pakistan cricket team. 

2024 didn’t bring much luck with it for the PCT as the team’s first test assignment of the year against Australia resulted in a 3-0 whitewash. 

This was also Shan Masood’s first engagement as the captain of the Pakistan test team so a humiliating defeat, that too with a new captain didn’t leave a pleasing impression on anyone. 

The team’s struggles on and off the field continued with Babar Azam getting replaced by Shaheen Shah as the captain of the Pakistan white-ball team. 

A new captain sure brought a wave of new hope, but the result was opposite of what the PCB or anyone else was expecting. 

Pakistan suffered from a crushing 4-1 defeat in a five-match T20I series against New Zealand. This was also the first and final stint of Shaheen Shah Afridi as captain of the Pakistan national team. 

A series defeat resulted in Shaheen’s captaincy getting sacked and Babar Azam getting reinstated as the captain of the Pakistan white-ball team. 

This decision created a rift between Shaheen and Babar which took a lot of time to settle. 

Adding further to the confusion were Mohammad Amir and Imad Wasim, who took back their retirement decision and made themselves available for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. 

The preparations for the mega event didn’t go as planned as Pakistan suffered from a historic match loss against Ireland, right before the T20 World Cup. 

They then toured England for a final pre-World Cup series, only to lose 0-2, with two matches washed out.

Pakistan team’s struggle in the shortest format of the game was further highlighted during the mega event where they lost to a debuting USA team and were forced to exit from the tournament in the group stage.

After the World Cup fiasco, Pakistan team’s struggles continued in the test format when they lost to Bangladesh 2-0 on their own home ground for the first time in history.

The loss included a crushing 10-wicket defeat in the first Test which raised serious questions about the team’s approach to Test cricket and left the captain, Shan Masood, under immense pressure.

Enough about the losses as the team also had some good moments to look back at. 

Mohammad Rizwan was appointed as the skipper of the Pakistan ODI and T20I team after Babar Azam officially quit the captaincy role. 

Under Rizwan, Pakistan pulled off a historic series win in Australia, clinching a 2-1 victory in a three-match ODI series—Pakistan’s first series win in Australia since 2002.

Pakistan’s performance in ODI cricket continued to improve under Rizwan as he led the team to a 2-1 victory in Zimbabwe, followed by a historic victory against South Africa.

The Men in Green achieved a new record by becoming the only team to defeat South Africa 3-0 in an ODI series. 

This victory did bring a lot of joy to the team towards the end of this upsetting year. 


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