The Pakistan Cricket Board has handed Sahibzada Farhan the T20I captaincy for the upcoming home series against Sri Lanka, dropping Salman Ali Agha from the format entirely, while Shaheen Shah Afridi has been retained as ODI captain for a seven-match tri-series involving England and Sri Lanka later this month. The squads, announced this week, mark the most significant leadership shake-up in Pakistan’s white-ball setup since the T20 World Cup earlier this year.
Farhan, a 30-year-old opening batter, takes over a side that will also be without Babar Azam, who misses the T20I squad but keeps his place in the 16-man ODI group. No official reason was given for Agha’s removal from the shorter format — he remains in contention for ODIs — but the timing points to a deliberate, format-specific split in leadership rather than a blanket shake-up. Farhan arrives on the back of a strong year: he was Pakistan’s top run-scorer at the T20 World Cup 2026 with 383 runs, and he captained the side to a silver medal at the Asian Games, where Pakistan lost the final to India earlier this month. Abdul Samad has been named his deputy.
| T20I Squad (vs Sri Lanka) | ODI Squad (Tri-Series) |
|---|---|
| Sahibzada Farhan (c) | Shaheen Shah Afridi (c) |
| Abdul Samad (vc) | Abrar Ahmed |
| Abrar Ahmed | Arafat Minhas |
| Arafat Minhas | Babar Azam |
| Fakhar Zaman | Faheem Ashraf |
| Hasan Nawaz | Fakhar Zaman |
| Khawaja Nafay (wk) | Haris Rauf |
| Maaz Sadaqat | Hasan Nawaz |
| Mohammad Salman Mirza | Muhammad Ghazi Ghori (wk) |
| Muhammad Imran Randhawa | Naseem Shah |
| Naseem Shah | Razaullah |
| Razaullah | Saad Baig (wk) |
| Saim Ayub | Saim Ayub |
| Shadab Khan | Salman Ali Agha |
| Sufiyan Moqim | Shadab Khan |
| Sufiyan Moqim |
Muhammad Imran Randhawa earns a maiden T20I call-up, while wicketkeeper-batter Saad Baig gets his first ODI selection. The T20I series against Sri Lanka runs over three matches — October 9, 11 and 13 — all at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
The ODI tri-series, Pakistan’s first senior assignment against England since the two sides last met in white-ball cricket, follows immediately after:
- October 18 — Pakistan vs Sri Lanka (Rawalpindi)
- October 20 — Pakistan vs England (Rawalpindi)
- October 22 — Sri Lanka vs England (Rawalpindi)
- October 25 — Pakistan vs England (Lahore)
- October 27 — Pakistan vs Sri Lanka (Lahore)
- October 29 — Sri Lanka vs England (Lahore)
- October 31 — Final (Lahore)
Dawn also reported that Shaun Tait is returning to the Pakistan setup as a consultancy bowling coach, replacing Ashley Noffke, who left after the Asian Games to take up a coaching role with the Netherlands — a change that, if confirmed in PCB’s own communication, would add another new face to the support staff just as the leadership group is being reshuffled.
Our Opinion
Splitting the white-ball captaincy by format isn’t itself unusual for modern cricket boards, but Pakistan’s selectors have now changed T20I leadership multiple times in little more than a year, and a pattern like that tends to cost a side more than any single appointment gains it — batting orders, death-bowling plans and fielding setups all take time to settle around a captain’s instincts, and a side that keeps restarting that process rarely builds the muscle memory that wins close matches; Farhan’s case for the job is real, built on runs and a creditable Asian Games campaign rather than boardroom politics, so the fairest thing PCB can do now is give him and Afridi a genuine run in their separate roles before the next bout of reshuffling talk inevitably starts.
