Can a Pakistan captain be judged on stats alone?

What is the definition of a ghatiya sawaal (lousy question)? Recently, Shahid Afridi walked out of a press conference after using that term to describe a reporter's query. The question was regarding Afridi's record as national T20 captain, which is the worst in Pakistani history. It clearly rankled Lala to the point that he didn't even wish to address it, but it did get me thinking about looking at captaincy records from the bottom up.

I had a look at the records of all Pakistan captains in each of the three formats. In order to keep a certain standard of achievement, I only looked at records against the top teams, and only considered captains who had a certain number of matches in charge.

The first, and perhaps most important, code is Test cricket, and it is a format where most long-term Pakistani captains have good records. I decided to disregard results against Bangladesh, who have never won against Pakistan in the longest format (though Rashid Latif's side was run perilously close) but did include matches against Zimbabwe, who have consistently troubled Pakistani teams, particularly during Zimbabwe's mid-to-late-'90s peak. I also had a choice on where to place the cut-off for minimum number of matches as captain. Several captains, such as Asif Iqbal and Javed Burki, had disastrous runs that only lasted for one tour each, but it felt unfair to view their tenures as anything more than stopgap. I decided to go with a minimum of 10 Tests, which meant that Mohammad Yousuf's poor run was among those that were spared.

Under these stipulations, Intikhab Alam emerges with what is easily the worst record for long-term Pakistani Test captains. Alam's reign of torpor in the first half of the '70s saw five defeats, 11 draws, and only one win from 17 matches. It was the nadir for the side, which would be completely transformed under Intikhab's successor, Mushtaq Mohammad, one of Pakistan's greatest captains. No other Pakistani captain who led in at least 10 Tests ended with more losses than wins, though all of AH Kardar, Hanif Mohammad, Fazal Mahmood, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Waqar Younis finished with a W/L ratio of exactly 1. The three early captains in that lot had relatively low win percentages, though, with Hanif's slightly worse than the other two. Inzamam's side had a better record, with a 35% win percentage, while Waqar's team won half the matches they played.

Moving onto ODIs, the parameters here were a minimum of 20 matches in charge, and a consideration of matches against Test-playing sides, but excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. In this table, three of the bottom four entries involve captains who had broken stints. Javed Miandad led the team in four different spells, while Younis Khan and Ramiz Raja had both stepped in as captains before getting extended runs. However, only Miandad can truly claim this excuse, as Ramiz and Younis only had brief spells as interim captains, and had relatively long continuous stints. Ramiz's unbroken stint was the worst for any captain for 20 or more matches, with one win for every two losses. Younis' team picked up two more wins in the same number of matches, but the record is still quite poor.

The only exception in the bottom four seems to be Misbah-ul-Haq, who had a long run as captain, and unlike the others did not face any major player rebellions or senate hearings and the like. His team, however, did suffer from a lack of home matches, and from being banned from the IPL, which arguably led to their regression. However, in a country with such rapid changes in captaincy, it is remarkable that Misbah retained the board's faith for as long as he did, despite the dismal numbers. After all, captains such as Shoaib Malik, Moin Khan, Saleem Malik and Afridi all had significantly shorter runs though they had superior records as captain compared to Misbah. Then again, each of their dismissals involved the sort of off-field drama that Misbah has been spared.

Finally, we turn to T20s - the format that sparked this exercise. Once again, I only looked at matches against the top eight Test sides, excluding Zimbabwe or Bangladesh, but this time around there was no need to stipulate a minimum number of matches, because three of the six eligible captains led in only 12 matches between themselves, although Younis' tally includes a world title. Shoaib Malik had led his team to a final, and had a decent record during a time when Pakistan was the best T20 side in the world. Mohammad Hafeez, who took over after the first of Afridi's stints, has a similar record over a larger number of matches. He was the only captain to preside over two World T20 campaigns, and so far the only one to end a WT20 without Pakistan making it to the knockouts. However, both of Afridi's runs as captain are significantly worse, with a record of roughly two wins for every three defeats in both spells.

Of course, despite all these numbers there should be some caution before accepting them at face value. Just about every one of these captains has had to face the unique blend of chaos and disaster that is intrinsic to Pakistani cricket, and bald numbers hide the context that necessarily accompanies them. Looking at just stats to explain and understand Pakistani cricket is quite reductive, which is perhaps why Afridi felt such an approach was so ghatiya.

*Jan 27, 11:50GMT: The T20 table incorrectly mentioned Mohammad Yousuf instead of Mohammad Hafeez. This has been changed