Shan Masood leaves captaincy future to PCB after Bangladesh drubbing

Pakistan Test captain Shan Masood has left his future as skipper in the air after his side’s 78-run loss to Bangladesh in the second Test in Sylhet.

The 2-0 series whitewash takes Masood’s tally to 12 losses in 16 matches. Only two skippers, Brendan Taylor and Shakib Al Hasan, have lost more games in their first 16 games as captains. Masood stated that the decision on his future lies with the board and that his goal from the job was to improve Pakistan’s Test team.

“My intentions are clean. I took on this job to improve our Test cricket. There are things that need to be discussed with the board and the decision is always the board’s. But my intentions have always been on how to improve this side because [I feel] you should always take on challenges and accept opportunities. It will always be my effort in any capacity – it doesn’t have to be that I do it sitting in the captaincy chair, or the player chair, wherever,” Masood said in the post-match press conference, as reported by ESPNcricinfo.

Pakistan had Bangladesh reeling at 116/6 on the first day before Litton Das’ century pulled them up to 278, which set a platform for the rest of the match. In similar instances prior, Pakistan have let matches slip from commanding positions. They lost the first Test against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi in August 2024, even after putting on a commanding first-innings score of 448. Masood identified the habits of his team making mistakes and stated that as a point for deliberation. 

“There’s many things that we need to build on. You won’t build from wholesale changes, you will build from identifying what we do well, what we do badly. How can we reduce those mistakes because as I’ve said before, in Tests mistakes over five days are very costly.”

Masood admitted that they need to identify whether or not the specific player roles are being executed properly by addressing the root causes of the problems instead of finding temporary fixes. 

“Like I said at the last Test, we have to see how the team should play, how we can overcome the weaknesses we have as a team. Whether that is a 40-year-old player or an 18-year-old, that doesn’t matter. What matters is whether they can fulfil the roles the team needs them to fulfil. When you lose you have to revisit it, you cannot keep saying after losing that everything is ok. But you have to look at the situation without emotion and see what the Pakistan Test team needs to do to progress. [The] changes needed are structural. For those changes you address root causes and put aside emotions. We are hurt and always offer our sincerest apologies. We won’t look at it emotionally though, just how we can improve it.”

Pakistan currently sit in eighth place in the current edition, just ahead of the West Indies at the bottom. They finished last in the previous ICC World Test Championship campaign under Masood’s leadership.