Azhar Ali has refused to speculate on recent media reports that he may be replaced Test captain, saying that until he hears anything officially he would not pay any heed to what essentially is “just media talk”.

Addressing a virtual press conference, Ali said: “As far as my captaincy is concerned, I am hearing from the media only and I have not held a meeting with anyone about any such thing.”

The Test captain said that he tries not to think about it and focus on his game, adding that such rumours had begun when Pakistan were touring Australia.

“When any official talk will be there then the effort would be made to address that. When there is no official talk about this topic, it is very difficult for me to comment on it,” he said.

About Central Punjab’s defeat at the hands of Sindh in the Quaid-e-Azam (first-class) game Azhar said: “Last season, too, we tried our best to get maximum points. In this game, unfortunately, when we had to score big in the first innings the outfield was too slow and batsmen got out in frustration. We should have scored up to 300 but we were folded at below-par total.”

“After 200 and plus runs we made in the first innings, we had taken six of Sindh’s early wickets before Fawad Alam played a superb knock for them and that put us behind,” Azhar said.

“When we went to the second innings, we were confident if we scored more runs we could win. But we came under pressure. We sent Kamran Akmal up the order to put pressure on Sindh. After we could not score more we thought to set a target for Sindh in 50 overs so that we could produce a win. The opposition batted so well and snatched the game from us,” Azhar said.