Pakistan Cricket in Crisis: Seven Players Dropped as England Tour Disintegrates

Pakistan’s Test tour of England has lurched from disappointing to chaotic.

With the side 0-2 down in the series and already out of the running for a place in the World Test Championship final, the Pakistan Cricket Board has swung the axe. Seven players have been released from the touring squad, a brutal mid-series cull that underlines just how deep the crisis runs.

Among those sent home is former white-ball captain Salman Agha, a significant dressing-room figure and one of three senior batters cut adrift. Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Ali Usman, Aamir Jamal, Muhammad Awais Zafar and Khurram Shahzad have also been told their time in England is over.

It is not a tweak. It is a clear-out.

Selection shock as Pakistan rip up the script

The message from the PCB and team management is blunt: form, fitness and discipline are non-negotiable. With Pakistan having lost five of their last six Tests, the lone victory coming against West Indies earlier this month, patience has snapped.

The numbers behind the decisions are damning.

• Rizwan, once the heartbeat of Pakistan’s middle order, has managed 283 runs in his last 11 Test innings at 25.72, with just two fifties.
• Agha has 221 runs at 24.55 in that stretch.
• Imam, trusted for stability at the top, has 178 runs at 22.25 from eight innings.

These are not the returns of senior men supposed to anchor a Test side in English conditions.

Since January 2025, Pakistan’s batting average in Tests sits at 23.92 — the worst among all WTC teams. The consequences are written across the standings: bottom of the World Test Championship table and winless in their last 18 Tests in SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia) since 2018, with 16 defeats and just two draws. Their last such win came at Lord’s more than eight years ago, in May 2018.

On Sunday, at the same ground, the spiral deepened. The defeat at Lord’s was their 10th loss in their last 11 away Tests and dragged their all-time Test win-loss ratio below 1 for the first time since 1987. Pakistan now have 153 wins and 154 defeats from 473 matches, a stark numerical symbol of decline.

New faces, new gamble

With the third Test starting on 9 September in Birmingham, Pakistan have turned to a mix of youth and fringe talent in a desperate attempt to jolt the side back to life.

Seven players have been called up. Three of them — Saim Ayub, Abdullah Fazal and Arafat Minhas — have already tasted international cricket for Pakistan. They now return with the expectation of injecting energy into a side that has looked flat and fragile.

Alongside them come four uncapped players: Mohammad Imran Jnr, Saad Baig, Mohammad Imran (Imran Randhawa) and Razaullah. For them, this is the deep end. A struggling team, a hostile English environment, and a fan base demanding answers.

It is a bold selection move. Or a roll of the dice.

Coaching overhaul mid-tour

The shake-up does not stop with the playing squad. The PCB has also moved against the Test coaching staff, ripping up the structure mid-tour.

Mike Hesson, who has been overseeing Pakistan’s white-ball side, has been asked to take charge of the Test team alongside Ashley Noffke. The New Zealander is already in England and is expected to link up with the squad shortly, stepping straight into a dressing room under severe strain.

Hesson will now lead the red-ball setup for the remainder of Pakistan’s WTC campaign in this cycle: two Tests in Sri Lanka in November and two more in New Zealand early next year. Current Test coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul have been released from their roles.

A mid-series coaching reshuffle in England is not without precedent. India did something similar in 2014, when the BCCI brought in Ravi Shastri with Bharat Arun, R Sridhar and Sanjay Bangar during a tour of England, effectively sidelining Duncan Fletcher’s staff. But that move came after the Test series and before the white-ball leg.

Pakistan have gone a step further, tearing up their plans in the middle of a Test series they are still trying to salvage.

A crossroads for Pakistan cricket

This is more than a reaction to a bad week at Lord’s. It is the culmination of years of stagnation in conditions that expose technique, temperament and planning.

The statistics are ruthless. The selections are ruthless. The coaching changes are ruthless.

What comes next will reveal whether this is the start of a reset or just another convulsion in a team that has forgotten how to win away from home. The third Test at Birmingham will not just be about the series scoreline.

It will be an early verdict on whether Pakistan’s drastic gamble has any chance of halting a slide that now stretches back almost a decade.