If the humiliating ODI series defeat against New Zealand was not enough, Pakistan Cricket is now embroiled in another controversy, after Babar Azam’s intimate videos and pictures have been leaked online. Babar has been at the receiving end of intense criticism from fans and experts alike after his team faltered at home against England and New Zealand.

As per some rumors, the Pakistani skipper was sexting with his teammate’s girlfriend, but that has already been debunked. It was just a satirical tweet from a parody account that gained traction after several publications picked it up. The pictures and voice note first resurfaced on Instagram, after it was allegedly posted by his ex-girlfriend.

Azam has been under pressure to resign from captaincy after a series of mediocre performances from his team. Under his stewardship, Pakistan meekly surrendered a Test series to England, then failed to win a single game in the two-match series against New Zealand. In the ODI series too, Pakistan suffered a 2-1 defeat to Blackcaps.

However, Babar has the full confidence of the team management and the former cricketers, as they understand there’s no one better than him to lead Pakistan across all three formats.

Even though the team has had a lackluster season, Babar personally enjoyed a stellar 2022, finishing with 2,485 runs in all forms of cricket to break Mohammad Yousuf’s 16-year-old record of scoring the most runs in a calendar year. Babar didn’t hide his disappointment from the rest of the team and would expect them to perform significantly better this year.

Pakistan is now scheduled to play five T20Is against New Zealand, starting on 13 April. Babar’s conservative batting in this format has also come under scanner, but given how fragile the rest of the batting line-up seems, it’s understandable why he plays that way.

Shahid Afridi, the newly-appointed chief selector, says, “This Selection Committee is here to support Babar Azam. He is a world-class batter and we want to help him become an equally good captain too. Our aim is to try our bench strength. A lot of our senior players are out for a long time. We will try and manage the workload as Babar highlighted this issue previously.”