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It has been about a week since Pakistan’s Champions Trophy-winning captain, Sarfaraz Ahmed, announced his retirement from international cricket. Tributes were given to the Karachi-born wicket-keeper batter, who led the national team in 100 international matches across formats. But how good was the former Captain of Pakistan? We look at Sarfaraz Ahmed’s captaincy stats in this blog.
Sarfaraz has led Pakistan in 13 Test matches, 50 One-Day Internationals, and 37 Twenty20 Internationals. His most memorable captaincy came in the 2017 Champions Trophy, where he led the 8th-ranked Pakistan side to an ICC ODI title, beating the then No.1 ODI team and arch-rivals India in a trashing victory in the final. It marked Pakistan’s first ICC ODI title in 25 years, having last won in 1992.
Along with the Champions Trophy, Sarfaraz was excellent as a T20I leader. Pakistan won 11 consecutive series, a world record before India overtook it with their most recent win in the ICC T20 World Cup 2026. The series win also included a tri-series win against Australia, the first time they defeated the Aussies in a multi-nation tournament final since 1990. It also included a series win in New Zealand, where Pakistan became the first Asian team to achieve this feat.
While Sarfaraz had his moments in the shortest format, the longer formats did not have that impressive record, apart from the Champions Trophy. His run in ODIs was above average, but Test cricket was terrible. Sarfaraz has never won an ODI bilateral series against the SENA nations and has won only four matches in Tests. We will further summarise it by breaking it down.
Also Read: Sarfaraz Ahmed – The Lost Captaincy
Breakdown of Sarfaraz Ahmed’s Captaincy Stats
FormatPlayedWinLossTied/DrawNo ResultW/L RatioTest1348100.50ODI502820021.40T20I37298003.62Overall1006136121.69
Sarfaraz clearly did not have a great run in the most traditional format of the game. Compared to the white ball, it is far better.
To understand it better, we further break them down team-wise.
Test Record BreakdownTeamsPlayedWinLossDrawnSeries PlayedSeries WonSeries LostAustralia2101110England2110100Ireland1100–––New Zealand3120101South Africa3030101Sri Lanka2020101
Only four wins in 13 Test matches he has led. It may look like a small sample, but in his early series as Test skipper, he showed indications that his way of leading a white-ball side would not work in red-ball cricket. And while Sarfaraz has won a Test match against Australia, England and New Zealand each, something that has not been achieved by any captains since, Sarfaraz’s biggest failure came in the UAE.
UAE was a fortress for Pakistan, with former captain Misbah ul-Haq, who did not lose a single series there. However, that came to an end with Sarfaraz losing back-to-back series against both Sri Lanka and New Zealand, with a record in the UAE ending with just two wins in seven matches. The former captain had won only one series out of five overall.
ODI Record BreakdownTeamsPlayedWinLossNRSeries PlayedSeries WonSeries LostAfghanistan2200000Australia1010000Bangladesh2110000England7241101Hong Kong1100000India5140000New Zealand9261201South Africa5320101Sri Lanka8800220West Indies4220110Zimbabwe6600110
Sarfaraz had a positive W/L ratio in ODI cricket, winning 28 matches. Although this was debatable to a lot of fans and experts. Apart from his successful campaign in the 2017 Champions Trophy and missing out in the 2019 World Cup knock-outs due to Net Run Rate, his bilaterals have not been up to expectations. If we divide the top sides and the bottom sides, his record reads in bilaterals 3 by 16. We can further break this into SENA+I vs the rest of the teams’ records:
Overall ODI recordTeamsPlayedWinLossNRAgainst SENA+I (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia and India)278172Rest of the Teams232030Total5028202
Bilateral ODI recordTeamsPlayedWinLossNRAgainst SENA+I (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia and India)162122Rest of the Teams161510Total3217132
Sarfaraz has never won an ODI series featuring the top five-ranked teams, which are the SENA teams. He managed to win just two between the SEN countries in bilaterals, having a W/L record of 0.167. His team’s strength in ODIs was built upon beating lower sides. This also explained Pakistan’s poor Asia Cup 2018 campaign, where they crashed out in the Super 4s.
In ICC records, it is something he can consider taking a rare record with him, for being the only Pakistan captain to beat England and South Africa twice in ICC ODI events.
T20I Record BreakdownTeamsPlayedWinLossNRSeries PlayedSeries WonSeries LostAustralia6510110England2020000New Zealand6510220Scotland2200110Sri Lanka6330211West Indies10910330World XI3210110Zimbabwe2200000
T20 cricket has always been Sarrafraz’s strongest format, and the table shows that. As a captain, he lost one series in his 11-series run, including the Zimbabwe tri-series featuring Australia. The only loss was the 2019 Sri Lanka T20I series, which they lost 3-0 to a weakened side. This was also the turning point of Sarfaraz’s career as captain, coming to an end.
This incredible run, where he lost just eight matches out of 37 he led, helped Pakistan to become the No.1 T20I side for the very first time. Sarfaraz also led Pakistan to become the first Asian side to win a T20I series in New Zealand. Fans wished that there was a T20 World Cup and had full faith that Pakistan would have won it under his leadership.
Sarfaraz’s W/L Ratio of 78.37 is the third-highest among full members, just behind Asghar Afghan and Rohit Sharma.
Also Read: End of Sarfaraz Ahmed’s captaincy stint with Quetta Gladiators
Sarfaraz Ahmed’s Captaincy Stats: Sarfaraz as a captain-batter
Record as a PlayerFormatMatchesRunsAveSR50s100sBestTest54303137.4170.16214118ODI117231533.5587.85112105T20I6181827.26125.263089*Overall232616434.2481.01356118
Record as a CaptainFormatMatchesRunsAveSR50s100sBestTest1356825.8163.115094ODI5080432.1687.295097T20I3752127.42130.571089*Overall100189328.6885.2711097
Sarfaraz has always been a fighter, coming in the middle order. His numbers as captain did not change much in white-ball cricket, having very similar numbers.
Though there was a massive dip in his Test form as a captain. Two of his five Test fifties came in a winning cause, in a match where Pakistan defeated Australia to seal a 1-0 series win. That was his highlight as a Test skipper, which was the only series he won.
Despite the similarities in numbers between captain/non-captain, one of the reasons why Sarfaraz was stripped of his leadership across all formats was “not getting runs.” This was stated by the then-coach Misbah ul-Haq, who took the responsibility shortly after the 2019 World Cup following the sacking of Mickey Arthur.
“There are all kinds of strange theories in the media, but it’s a simple thing, like the Chairman also said, it’s about Sarfaraz’s form & the pressure he was playing under. It was based on that the decision to remove Sarfaraz from captaincy was taken.” Misbah ul-Haq
The sacking of Sarfaraz was met with mixed criticism. During that time, it was expected that he would be removed from the Test as it was not up to expectations. There were calls for Sarfaraz to continue in white-ball cricket, or at least in T20Is if not for ODIs. One could say his sacking and exclusion were a bit premature, especially in a transition phase.
Sarfaraz Ahmed was Pakistan’s U19 World Cup-winning captain and made his debut for the national team in 2007, and played until the end of 2023. We thank Sarfaraz for his contributions as both a player and a captain, especially in the 2017 Champions Trophy.
On behalf of the Green Team, we wish him the best of luck for the future.
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