Babar's return to Test captaincy is a marriage of convenience

Of course, nostalgia has a way of playing wicked tricks with the mind. Pakistan might have taken for granted the kind of performances and series wins they would kill for now, away in Sri Lanka right at the end of that experiment, for one. They even, if you can believe it, went to Bangladesh at the end of 2021 and came away with two crushing wins. But it was also the time when the diseased seeds that now bear such rotten fruit were sown, more out of incompetence than malice. When Australia visited for their first Test engagement in 24 years, Pakistan prepared pitches so moribund they were more graveyard than road. PCB chairman Ramiz Raja openly accepted responsibility for it at the time, though has since sought to cast Babar in the role of chief protagonist in the matter.

Babar's own captaincy record - 10 wins and six defeats - might look positively Waugh-esque in light of what was to follow, but there was a reason Pakistan looked for a new leader after more than three years of Babar. Just before that series win in Sri Lanka, Pakistan had gone an astonishing eight Tests - all at home - without a single win. It included an especially dismal thrashing at England's hands - to date their only 3-0 series whitewash at home.

Babar's reading of the game, and overall vibe as a leader, was insipid, especially the way he used his spinners, contrasting unfavourably with what Ben Stokes had done on surfaces the England captain seemed to understand better than his Pakistani counterpart. It was all capped off by a bizarre assertion at the end of the third Test that Pakistan had dominated each match, prompting this site to compare him, a touch melodramatically, to Nicolae Ceausescu.

There is no pretense that Babar's appointment is a silver bullet. It is a marriage of convenience between a board that found itself out of options, and a player searching for glory that seemed inevitable in those halcyon days of the early 2020s. At 31, there is also the weary recognition, based on a decade's sample size, that Babar isn't quite as gifted at constantly adapting and improving as might have been true of a player of his calibre. This isn't so much a software upgrade as it is a machine being switched off and on again, and hoping it gets back to a semblance of usability.

However, Babar should be liberated by the undeniable fact that, even in an era when the tug-of-war between player and board seems to have swung so decisively in the other direction, it is the player who won this bout. Even an enfeebled Babar - one nowhere close to the height of his batting powers - was Pakistan cricket's best option when it needed somewhere to turn, and with no obviously foreseeable candidates in the near term and the Test side at rock bottom, there is no reason Babar's second stint cannot enjoy a similar length to its first. It offers him a chance at rebuilding his legacy as a Test player and captain, protected somewhat by a star status and legions of fans that his predecessor never enjoyed.

There will be no quick turnaround, though, with Babar coming up against the same glass ceiling Masood did - the quality of his players, and the value Pakistan's biggest stars are willing to ascribe to Test cricket. But with no fresh material expected, the PCB have decided to get the band back together, and replay an old classic. Pakistan may not be looking forward to the prospect of away series in West Indies and England, but they can, at least, look back.

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