LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board’s patience has run out over the national team’s substandard performance on the tour of England, with a squad and coaching overhaul under way before the final Test at Edgbaston.
Following the defeat in the Lord’s Test, an important meeting was held between the team management and board officials at the team hotel in London, at which the current situation was reviewed and emergency measures considered.
According to sources, major changes to the national squad are likely before the third Test, and a decision has also been taken to summon additional cricketers from Pakistan to England. Saim Ayub and Arafat Minhas have been called to England, while other players will be sent once their visas are issued.
Sources say a decision has also been taken to send Mohammad Rizwan and Imam-ul-Haq home. An investigation into the circumstances of Imam-ul-Haq’s injury is likely, with a further decision on the matter expected.
On the coaching side, Mike Hesson will work alongside Sarfraz Ahmed on key matters relating to the team for the third Test. Significant changes are expected in Pakistan’s playing eleven and in its strategy for that match.
Board officials expressed concern over the team’s performance in the Lord’s Test and decided on immediate measures to improve the situation.
England defeated Pakistan by 194 runs on the fourth day of the second Test at Lord’s on Sunday, taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series and clinching it with a Test to spare.
Ollie Robinson took eight wickets in the match and was named player of the match, with Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue also causing persistent problems. Saud Shakeel’s 97 — falling three short of a century — was the only substantial resistance in Pakistan’s second innings.
The defeat ended Pakistan’s long unbeaten run at Lord’s and represented the tourists’ ninth loss in their last ten overseas matches. It was also Pakistan’s second consecutive Test series defeat in England, following the 1-0 loss in 2020.
The third and final Test will be played at Edgbaston in Birmingham from 9 to 13 September.
Pakistan cricket has a well-established reflex, and this is it. A heavy defeat is followed within seventy-two hours by squad changes, coaching reshuffles and an inquiry — measures that are visible, immediate and cost the board nothing structurally.
Some of what is being done is defensible. Calling up Saim Ayub and Arafat Minhas, both young and both with reasons to be there, is a forward-looking selection rather than a punitive one. Sending home a senior batter in poor form is a legitimate selectorial decision, however uncomfortable.
Other elements are harder to defend. Inserting the white-ball head coach into a red-ball assignment mid-series, alongside the incumbent red-ball head coach, is an arrangement with no clear line of authority; it tends to produce ambiguity in the dressing room at precisely the moment clarity is needed. Pakistan has cycled through this configuration before, and it has rarely survived a full season.
The proposed inquiry into an injury is the item that should be watched most carefully. Whatever its findings, a board investigating a player’s calf tear in public sets a precedent that discourages honest injury reporting — and a squad that conceals niggles to avoid scrutiny is a squad that breaks down mid-tour.
The underlying problem the Edgbaston selection cannot address is the one the series exposed: a batting order that has now been dismantled repeatedly by high pace and seam movement in English conditions, and a first-class structure that does not produce enough of either at home. That is a five-year problem. Nothing decided in a London hotel on Sunday night touches it.
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