Pakistan Revamps Test Team After Lord’s Defeat

Pakistan have torn into their Test set-up mid-series, releasing seven squad members – including senior figures Mohammad Rizwan, Imamul Haq and Salman Ali Agha – after back‑to‑back hammerings by England.

The shake-up comes in the harsh glare of a 194-run defeat at Lord’s, which followed an innings-and-103-run mauling in the first Test at Headingley. England already have the series in the bag at 2-0 with one to play. Pakistan, stung and cornered, have reached for the reset button.

Senior names out, new blood in

A Pakistan Cricket Board press release confirmed that Rizwan, Imam and Agha have been sent home along with Ali Usman, Aamir Jamal, Muhammad Awais Zafar and Khurram Shahzad. For a touring side usually reluctant to make sweeping changes on the road, this is a brutal cut.

In their place come seven players, five of them uncapped at Test level. It is not a gentle refresh. It is a gamble.

Saim Ayub and Abdullah Fazal are the only incoming names with Test experience, having played eight and two matches respectively. They are being asked to step into a dressing room that has just been stripped of some of its most recognisable voices.

Around them, Pakistan will lean on a cluster of rookies. Arafat Minhas, a left-arm spin-bowling all-rounder with three ODIs and four T20Is to his name, steps into the longest format. Left-arm quick Mohammad Imran Jr. joins him, as do wicketkeeper-batter Saad Baig – the standout performer in the 2025-26 Quaid-i-Azam Trophy – and right-arm pace-bowling all-rounders Mohammad Imran (Imran Randhawa) and Razaullah.

The message is clear: places are no longer safe, reputations no longer enough.

Backroom overhaul to match on-field cull

The clear-out is not confined to the playing staff. Test head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul have also been relieved of their duties. The PCB has turned to its white-ball brains trust to steady the ship, with Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke drafted into the Test backroom staff.

It is an unusual move in the middle of a series, especially in English conditions where continuity is often prized. Pakistan have gone the other way, ripping up the plan with one match still to play.

The new-look group will assemble ahead of the third and final Test at Birmingham on September 9. For many, it will be a first taste of the format at the highest level. For others, it may feel like an early audition for the next cycle of Pakistan Test cricket.

Birmingham squad: a different Pakistan

The updated squad for the Birmingham Test reads like the start of a new chapter as much as the end of a bruising tour:

• Babar Azam (captain)
• Abdullah Fazal
• Arafat Minhas
• Azan Awais
• Mohammad Abbas
• Mohammad Ali
• Muhammad Imran
• Mohammad Imran Jnr
• Muhammad Ghazi Ghori (wicket-keeper)
• Razaullah
• Saad Baig (wicket-keeper)
• Saim Ayub
• Sajid Khan
• Saud Shakeel
• Shan Masood
• Ubaid Shah

Babar Azam remains the constant at the centre of the storm, his leadership now tested not just by English seam and swing, but by a dressing room suddenly full of fresh faces and nervous energy.

England have already claimed the series. Pakistan, though, have something else to play for in Birmingham: a hint of identity, a shard of belief, and an answer to a blunt question that now hangs over their Test future – who, exactly, are they going to be from here?