Shan Masood deflected questions about the future of his captaincy in the wake of a 78-run loss to Bangladesh in Sylhet. which marked a second successive series win for Bangladesh over Pakistan. Among a spate of firsts a couple will make for especially grim reading for Masood, given they have come under his captaincy: Pakistan become the first team other than Zimbabwe to lose four consecutive Tests to Bangladesh,. now equal their worst away streak, with a seventh consecutive loss.
Masood's record as captain now stands at 12 losses in 16 Tests, the second-most for a Pakistan captain - Misbah-ul-Haq's 19 came in 56 Tests -. only two captains have suffered more defeats in their first 16 Tests as captain, Brendan Taylor and Shakib Al Hasan with 13 each. Under Masood, Pakistan finished bottom of the World Test Championship (WTC) in the last cycle. are eighth in the current cycle.
At first, Masood told press after the defeat that he would only talk about this series. not the future of his captaincy. But pressed on it again later, he acknowledged the decision on his future is out of his hands.
"My intentions are clean. I took on this job to improve our Test cricket. There are things that need to be discussed with the board and the decision is always the board's. But my intentions have always been on how to improve this side because [I feel] you should always take on challenges. accept opportunities.
"It will always be my effort in any capacity - it doesn't have to be that I do it sitting in the captaincy chair. or the player chair, wherever. You don't know where life will take you, but I've always worn this shirt with pride. put everything aside for this. I think at this moment. instead of just talking about change, we need to think about how to improve Pakistan's Test cricket.
"There's many things that we need to build on. You won't build from wholesale changes, you will build from identifying what we do well, what we do badly. How can we reduce those mistakes because as I've said before, in Tests mistakes over five days are very costly."
Masood has often ended losing Tests or series bemoaning the mistakes his sides have continued to make. or the opportunities they have missed to press home the advantage. In Sylhet, they had Bangladesh 116-6 on the first day before Litton Das's hundred rallied them to 278. That mirrored similar positions of strength against Bangladesh in their home series in 2024, where Pakistan declared at 448-6 in the first Test (and lost by 10 wickets). had Bangladesh 26-6 in the second (and lost by six wickets).
"If we talk about the series, yes, it's never a good place to lose games," he said. "But again, in this series, I thought in both matches we've had significant chances to do well in the game. And I think we have to look at ourselves, we have to reflect on ourselves, whether that's batting, bowling, or fielding,. see where we lost the game. And that's where I feel that we need to go forward as a side."
Masood's own position in the XI - let alone as captain - has been as much a subject of scrutiny through his near three-year tenure. He ended up with one significant score in this series - his 71 in the final innings -. averaged under 26 with the bat. That leaves his career average after 46 Tests at just a touch over 30, though as captain he averages 34. It hasn't been helped by the extreme nature of the pitches Pakistan have produced for their home Tests over the last two seasons. a point not lost on Masood who made special mention of the surfaces Bangladesh provided which, he said, offered something to everyone.
But he resisted calls for wholesale changes to a line-up that, across both Tests, was predominantly 30-plus. also relatively inexperienced in terms of Tests played.
"Like I said at the last Test. we have to see how the team should play, how we can overcome the weaknesses we have as a team. Whether that is a 40-year-old player or an 18-year-old, that doesn't matter. What matters is whether they can fulfil the roles the team needs them to fulfil. When you lose you have to revisit it, you cannot keep saying after losing that everything is ok. But you have to look at the situation without emotion. see what the Pakistan Test team needs to do to progress.
"[The] changes needed are structural. For those changes you address root causes and put aside emotions. We are hurt and always offer our sincerest apologies. We won't look at it emotionally though, just how we can improve it."
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