Pakistan's Babar Azam plays a shot during the T20 World Cup cricket match between England and Pakistan in Pallekele, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)After an underwhelming T20 World Cup, Pakistan cricket management have decided to drop star batter Babar Azam from the side that will tour Bangladesh for a three-match series from next week.Babar had scored a century in the last series Pakistan cricket team played in the One Day International format—a 102 against Sri Lanka in November—but faced the axe when the 15-member squad was named. Left-arm pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi has been handed the captaincy of the side for the three-match series while six uncapped players have been called up, including Abdul Samad, Maaz Sadaqat, Saad Masood and Shamyl Hussain who played against the England Lions in Abu Dhabi before the series was called off due to the conflict in the Middle East.Pakistan cricketers were reportedly fined $18,000 each after the team’s failure to reach the T20 World Cup semifinals. Besides Pakistan coach Mike Hesson and captain Salman Ali Agha, Babar also came under withering criticism during the T20 World Cup where Pakistan failed to reach the semi-finals.Babar, who was pushed down to the no 4 spot from his regular no 3 position, managed to score just 91 runs across four innings, with 46 of those runs coming in just one game.While Pakistan legend Shahid Afridi called for stars like Babar to be benched during the T20 World Cup, South Africa’s Faf du Plessis said that the T20 evolution was leaving the Pakistan batter behind.“We know Babar as one of the world’s best players for a very long time. I think the game of T20 cricket has moved so fast forward into strike rates that he’s found himself a little bit behind in terms of strike rates,” Du Plessis said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show.Australian cricket legend Ricky Ponting said that Babar looked like he had ‘lost his power’.Story continues below this ad“It just to me looks like he’s lost a bit of his power, his ball striking ability, like taking on that spinner on the way he did and not being able to even go close to clearing it,” Ponting said in a conversation with Ravi Shastri and Sanjana Ganesan on the latest episode of The ICC Review.(With inputs from Reuters)Stay updated with the latest sports news across Cricket, Football, Chess, and more. Catch all the action with real-time live cricket score updates and in-depth coverage of ongoing matches.© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd