BIRMINGHAM — Babar Azam learned the same thing the rest of cricket did, at roughly the same time, from the same Pakistan Cricket Board statement: seven of his teammates were being sent home, his head coach was gone, and the squad that would take the field at Edgbaston had been assembled without a single conversation with the man who would captain it.
“I was not consulted,” Babar said at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday. “It was news to me as well. I only found out about all these things later.”
That admission, delivered in the measured tone of a man who has learned which battles to fight publicly, reframes what happens at Edgbaston from September 9. Pakistan arrive for the dead-rubber third and final Test against England not merely 2-0 down in a series they have already lost, but with a visible fracture between a board willing to make transformational decisions without consulting the captain, and a captain who has now put that fracture on record. Even in a match without consequences for the series result, the consequence of what the board did is considerable.
The Pakistan Cricket Board sent Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Agha Salman, Ali Usman, Aamer Jamal, Awais Zafar and Khurram Shahzad home following England’s 194-run victory at Lord’s at the end of August. Head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed, appointed only in April and five months into the job he was handed to rebuild red-ball culture in Pakistan, was dismissed alongside bowling coach Umar Gul. The announcement arrived without the captain being informed. Shaheen Shah Afridi described the overhaul as among the most shocking decisions he had witnessed in Pakistani cricket, a statement that carries weight from someone who has witnessed quite a few.
PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi framed the changes as the start of a wider Test revamp, a framing that does not quite account for the fact that Sarfaraz Ahmed was handed the coaching appointment in April specifically to build that foundation. Mickey Arthur, who himself managed Pakistan’s Test programme in an earlier era, criticised the decisions publicly, calling the mid-series nature of the overhaul counterproductive. When former coaches join current captains in criticising a board, the institutional problem is usually larger than a scoreline.
When Babar was pressed on whether the board owed him a conversation before decisions of that scale, he deflected without quite concealing his position. “The PCB decided it, so they will be able to explain better,” he said. “The PCB’s decision must have been taken after some thought process. It’s better if you ask them.” Babar is a careful speaker at press conferences. He knows what he is not saying.
The series has been a comprehensive England performance. At Headingley on August 19, England crushed Pakistan by an innings and 103 runs inside three days, with Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue each taking eight wickets as Pakistan’s batting failed to adapt to conditions Robinson had long since mapped. The second Test at Lord’s was marginally more competitive only in that Pakistan managed four innings rather than three. Robinson’s match figures of 8 for 35 in 27 overs, delivered with back-of-a-length accuracy that found edges rather than batsmen looking for them, are the single most instructive number of this tour. He bowled Pakistan out for 110 in the first innings and returned to end any chase in the fourth. Across four innings at two grounds, Pakistan’s highest individual score was the 97 Saud Shakeel made at Lord’s before being caught on the boundary attempting the century that would have mattered less than the four runs the match was already beyond his team.
England have won five of their eight Tests against Pakistan at Edgbaston, including the last two. The pitch rewards seam bowling with lateral movement in the early sessions, precisely the conditions Robinson has exploited throughout this tour, and cool and overcast weather is forecast for the week, extending that window. With the 2027 Ashes schedule already confirmed and England’s red-ball programme functioning with real purpose under Ben Stokes, this side arrives at Edgbaston with nothing to prove and much to consolidate.
The five uncapped players have never faced an England seam attack in these conditions. Nobody on either side of the series knows what they will do, because nobody has seen them at this level. The match starting Wednesday will supply those answers by Friday, and probably sooner.
What the match cannot answer is the question Babar left open in Birmingham on Tuesday. Why the PCB chose to dismantle a touring squad in the middle of a series, inform nobody in the dressing room before going public, and hand a dead-rubber match to a new coaching staff and five debutants in the making, these are not simply cricketing decisions. Babar was asked, and said the PCB would explain it better. They have not explained at all.
