Pakistan’s selectors have dropped former Test captain Shan Masood, wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan, opener Imam-ul-Haq and opener Abdullah Shafique from the 14-member Test squad named for next month’s two-match series against Sri Lanka, handing maiden call-ups to three uncapped domestic run-scorers. Babar Azam continues to lead the side, which goes into the series bottom of the ICC World Test Championship 2025-27 table.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced the squad on Saturday, a day before the fresh changes were widely reported by Dawn and other outlets. Along with the senior top-order batters, spin pair Sajid Khan and Noman Ali, and pace options Aamir Jamal, Khurram Shahzad and Mohammad Ali were also left out of the initial squad, though no reasons were given for any of the omissions.
| Player | Status |
|---|---|
| Babar Azam | Captain |
| Saud Shakeel | Retained |
| Salman Ali Agha | Retained |
| Azan Awais | Retained |
| Abdullah Fazal | Retained |
| Arafat Minhas | Retained |
| Mohammad Abbas | Retained |
| Razaullah | Retained |
| Ali Usman | Squad member |
| Saad Baig | Wicketkeeper |
| Mohammad Ghazi Ghori | Wicketkeeper |
| Mohammad Taha | Maiden Test call-up |
| Mohammad Suleman | Maiden Test call-up |
| Sameer Minhas | Maiden Test call-up |
Why Masood, Rizwan and Imam were left out
None of the four senior batters dropped had enjoyed a settled run of form coming into the selection. Masood, who was replaced as Test captain by Babar Azam ahead of the home series against the West Indies and England earlier this year, managed just 161 runs in six innings on England’s tour this past summer — scores of 29 and 5 at Leeds, 26 and 1 at Lord’s, and 95 and 5 at Edgbaston — as Pakistan were whitewashed 3-0 in that series. He does retain a career average of 30.80 from 50 Tests, with a century against the West Indies in Trinidad in July before a finger injury ruled him out of the second match. Shafique, for his part, scored an unbeaten 160 in the first innings against the West Indies but struggled badly in England, totalling just 84 runs across six innings. The PCB has not publicly explained the exact reasoning behind any of the individual omissions, including those of Rizwan and Imam.
Three uncapped players handed maiden call-ups
The selectors have turned instead to in-form performers from the ongoing President’s Trophy Grade-I season. Left-handed batter Mohammad Taha, 26, tops the tournament’s run charts with 730 runs in seven matches, including three centuries and a highest score of 225. Mohammad Suleman sits fifth on the same list with 652 runs and three hundreds, while Sameer Minhas, in his first full first-class season after representing Pakistan’s Under-19 side, has scored 405 runs in seven matches. All three will hope to translate domestic form into Test opportunities against a Sri Lankan attack that sits seventh in the WTC standings, one place above Pakistan.
Series schedule
- Three-day warm-up: PCB Patron’s XI vs Sri Lanka, Islamabad Club, November 4-6
- First Test: Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, November 9-13
- Second Test: Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, November 17-21
Saad Baig will captain the 13-man Patron’s XI in the warm-up fixture, which also includes uncapped trio Taha, Suleman and Minhas alongside Abdullah Fazal, Ali Usman and Azan Awais from the main squad. The selectors plan to add two fast bowlers to the Test squad once the warm-up match concludes, drawn from a Patron’s XI pace attack that features Mohammad Salman, Shoaib Akhtar Jnr, Ali Shabbir, Saqib Khan and Ubaid Shah.
The squad changes come at a tense time for Pakistan’s red-ball side. Having finished bottom of the previous WTC cycle, the team now sits at the foot of the current table as well, and this series against Sri Lanka offers an early opportunity to start rebuilding points on the board — with a notably younger batting core expected to carry that effort.
Our Opinion
Dropping three senior batters and a spin pair in one go is a bold call, but it is hard to argue with the logic given how thin the returns have been from the top order over the past year; the real test for the selectors now is whether this is a genuine long-term rebuild around the domestic circuit’s best run-scorers or another reactive shuffle that gets reversed the moment results don’t turn around immediately, and either way the PCB would do well to be more transparent about its reasoning the next time it drops players of this profile without explanation.
