New captain, interim coach, players recalled who had not previously featured in 2026. If England’s lot this summer befell Pakistan, it would be considered par for the course.
This coming week, with incoming Test coach Stephen Fleming not ready to take up his role, Joe Root and Marcus Trescothick will form a temporary leadership alliance, while Dan Lawrence, Ollie Pope and Sam Cook return to the fray in Leeds.
England are desperate to create some stability after reaching the end of the Bazball era with the midsummer departures of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, but if one team in world cricket is accustomed to dealing with the unsettling elements of wholesale change it is Pakistan.
Some will even argue that rather than run from chaos, they embrace it, and in keeping with dull moments being conspicuous by their absence where their cricket is involved, captain Babar Azam provided a pre-series scare on Friday when he was forced to retire hurt and pull out of the remainder of the warm-up match against a County Select XI.
Failing to ride a rising delivery from Hampshire’s teenage seamer Manny Lumsden, Babar was struck on the right glove and immediately began wringing his hand in discomfort.
Team insiders insist the removal was a precautionary measure and that although there was no sign of a fracture, the fact that it was the same middle finger Pakistan’s premier batsman damaged during the recent Test win over West Indies in Trinidad meant no chances were being taken.
Babar Azam, pictured earlier this year ahead of a Test against West Indies, gave his side an injury scare this week ahead of the England clash at Headingley
That eight-wicket victory earlier this month was Pakistan’s first overseas for three years, ending a sequence of eight straight defeats, and although Babar’s brief sidelining removed the chance to further develop the on-field bond between this latest combination of players, he is pencilled in to rejoin them in the nets at Headingley on Monday, 48 hours before the first Test of three begins.
Mirroring the situation England found themselves in, a level of awkwardness surrounded Pakistan’s most recent captaincy change ahead of the 1-1 series draw in the Caribbean.
The strong friendship between Joe Root and Harry Brook has diluted the issue from an English perspective after Stokes nominated the latter as his successor during his farewell at Trent Bridge, and Brook followed up with a public pitch to become captain across all formats.
Arguably, Pakistan had to overcome something slightly worse, though, with Shan Masood axed after three years in charge but retained in the XI under Babar. The response offered mixed results: although Masood scored a first-innings hundred, the match ended in defeat and him nursing a finger injury that would keep him out of the second match.
It was partly for his statesmanlike demeanour that Masood replaced Babar as captain in 2023 and it is for his diplomatic communication skills that former captain Rashid Latif suggested this week a novel relationship could now develop. Masood, he argued, should continue with media interactions, shielding Babar and allowing him to concentrate on directing operations in the middle now he has the armband back.
‘An England tour is a difficult assignment, and the English media often tries to unnecessarily involve visiting teams in news stories,’ he claimed.
To be fair, previous Pakistan teams touring here this century have provided plenty of material of their own. Think back to Inzamam-ul-Haq walking his team off the field and forfeiting The Oval Test amid ball tampering accusations from officials in 2006 or the spot-fixing scandal that grubbed the series four years later as examples.
But Latif’s desire for Babar to concentrate on lifting Pakistan’s Test cricket out of the doldrums is well meaning. Languishing in eighth in the current World Test Championship standings, one place below England, they have won just one of their previous eight series – against Stokes’ side in the autumn of 2024.
Shan Masood (left) was stripped of the captaincy but is still in the team under Azam (right)
And dealing with the off-field maelstrom in a cricket-mad country is never easy. Just this week, Shaheen Shah Afridi was batting away suggestions that Babar will be replacing him as Pakistan’s one-day captain imminently. There is also talk of Salman Ali Agha making way in Twenty20.
In Pakistani cricket circles, there is always someone ready to take your job. When Agha was appointed last year, he became his country’s fourth T20 captain in 14 months.
The same goes with coaches. Sarfaraz Ahmed leads this tour, but only after surviving calls for his head following the 2-0 defeat to Bangladesh. He only moved into the post in April.
Gary Kirsten, the man who guided India to the No 1 Test ranking and 2011 World Cup glory, lasted only six months in charge of Pakistan’s white-ball teams during 2024.
Jason Gillespie, their other high-profile foreign appointment in a split coaching set-up, didn’t stick around much longer.
Both were upset by external interference in team affairs, with Gillespie refusing to let success against England during the 2-1 home win two years ago cloud his judgment. He had been reduced to a ‘match-day analyst’, he said, adding that ‘it wasn’t what I signed up for.’
Whatever happens over the next month, those investing emotions in a series like this are unlikely to be disappointed by the drama that unfolds.
Past Pakistan dramas:
2001: England’s attempts to save a match at Old Trafford, and thereby win a fifth series in a row, were marred by Pakistan taking four wickets with no balls. The umpiring errors from David Shepherd and Ed Nichols, in the days before technology was used automatically to check bowlers overstepping, helped Pakistan to a win with less than seven overs remaining. Three of the officiating errors came at the legendary Shepherd’s end, with Saqlain Mushtaq the benefactor.
2006: Inzamam-ul-Haq became the first captain in 129 years to forfeit a Test match after taking umbrage at being punished for ball-tampering on the fourth day of the Oval Test. What began as a five-run penalty imposed by the umpires – Australian Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove, of West Indies – soon escalated into a major diplomatic incident, with Pakistan refusing to take the field after tea, leading to Hair removing the bails and England being declared winners in the record books.
Inzamam-ul-Haq is pictured in 2006 – the Pakistan captain forfeited after a ball-tampering scandal
2010: The actions of three of Pakistan’s best players – captain Salman Butt, along with bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif – shook the sporting world following a newspaper sting that showed them to be participating in a betting scam known as spot-fixing.
Amir’s brilliance had England on the ropes at 102 for seven before Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad produced a Test record eighth-wicket stand of 332. Both their achievement, and England’s innings victory, were inevitably tarnished when it emerged no-balls had been delivered to order for cash. All three men were jailed and handed lengthy bans from cricket.
2016: Lord’s was a much happier place this time as veteran captain Misbah-ul-Haq led the tourists to a 75-run win remembered for his reaction to his 10th Test hundred. To mark the 154-ball effort, the 42-year-old dropped his bat and peeled off 10 press-ups, in tribute to the army officers who had put the Pakistan squad through their paces pre-tour. The fitness regime was acknowledged again by the entire squad post-match, with a group press-up celebration.
