Thank You Captain Salman Ali Agha! ♥️🇵🇰
Salman Ali Agha is no longer the T20I captain. And honestly, even though when he was first appointed, I was one of the many people who was really, really skeptical about his captaincy and didn't want him as captain. I was still pushing and still am pushing for Shaheen Shah Afridi to be the T20I captain. But talking from my heart, I'm actually going to miss this era.The memes and the matches made this really unforgettable and we had some pretty good matches too. I was one of the people who wanted Salman to step down, but now that he's actually been removed, I've been thinking about his time as captain. His tenure obviously had its ups and downs, and people can debate the results and decisions all they want. But personally, I have a lot of fond memories from this era. The Bangladesh series, where we had a house full at Gaddafi Stadium without even having all the big names. Then there was the period where we picked a really young squad and actually stuck with them for quite a while, all the way up until the Asia Cup. Whether you agree with everything they did or not, this team actually played pretty aggressively, and I really liked that approach. And that's the thing for me. After the early exit from the 2024 World Cup and then the 2025 Champions Trophy exit at home, I was honestly too heartbroken to even care much about watching bilaterals. But somehow, this team made bilaterals feel fun again. And I can never forget Salman's knock against Sri Lanka in that rain-affected match. That for me is the one inning that has been engraved in my mind. This era had it's highs and had it's lows.
Did Salman deliver everything we expected from him? No.
Was this a good T20I captaincy tenure statistically? No.
But that's not really what I'm going to remember. I'm going to remember the memories. And I just hope we don't immediately forget this entire era simply because we couldn't win a major trophy. Not every era of Pakistan cricket is going to end with a trophy, but that doesn't mean there wasn't anything worth remembering. I just hope he isn't only remembered as the captain who lost to India thrice.
Even when a huge part of the nation was against you, you still stood there and tried to make it work. You weren't exactly the first name that would come to mind when people thought of a traditional T20I player, but you still tried to change and adapt your game as much as you could to make yourself work in this format.
And I'm genuinely grateful for that. And then you achieved this with your team.
- Won the Bangladesh series.
- Won the West Indies series.
- Won the Tri-nation series vs Afg & UAE.
- Asia Cup Runners-up.
- Won the South Africa series.
- Won the Tri-Series vs Zim & SL.
- Won the Australia Series.
- Missed out on WC SFs on NRR.
Thank you for your services, Captain. 🇵🇰