Babar is cleared for Headingley, and captains a Test for the first time since 2023

Babar Azam trained in full at Headingley on Monday and has been cleared by Pakistan’s medical staff, which means he will captain the side in a Test on Wednesday for the first time in three years. For two days that had looked less certain than the PCB wanted it to.

One rising ball at Beckenham

The scare came in the tour match against a county select XI at Beckenham. Manny Lumsden, a young seamer on England’s Under-19 books, got a delivery to lift at Babar and hit him on the bottom hand, the right middle finger. He had made five. He dropped the bat and did not bat again in the match.

Pakistan then rested him for the rest of the fixture. “Following an assessment by the team doctor and taking precautionary measures, Babar has been advised to take rest from the remainder of the practice match,” the board said, adding that he would train at Headingley on Monday. The nervousness was understandable, because it was the same finger Babar hurt during the Test against West Indies in Trinidad earlier this month. Two knocks on the same joint in a fortnight is the kind of thing that ends up being nothing until suddenly it is not.

Captain again, and Shaheen is not here

This series is Babar’s return to the Test captaincy. He replaced Shan Masood, who stays in the squad as a batter, and he has not led Pakistan in the format since a Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo in July 2023.

The squad he inherits is not the one England will have prepared for over the past few years. Shaheen Shah Afridi is not in it. Four uncapped players are: the left-arm spinner Ali Usman, the batter Muhammad Awais Zafar, the fast bowler Ubaid Shah and the wicketkeeper Muhammad Ghazi Ghori. Saud Shakeel was named subject to fitness. Pakistan have brought a squad in transition to the hardest place they tour.

The hundred that will not come

Babar’s own form is its own story, and the finger is a footnote to it. His last Test century was in December 2022, against New Zealand in Karachi. He has spent the three and a half years since getting close and finding new ways not to get there, most recently on 4 August in Trinidad, where Brandon King’s direct hit from short cover ran him out for 88.

Whatever else the England tour is, for Babar it is three Tests in conditions that have historically flattered no visiting batter, with a drought he cannot stop being asked about.

Thirty years without a series win here

The Tests are at Headingley from Wednesday, Lord’s from 27 August and Edgbaston to finish, with the series running to 13 September and counting towards the World Test Championship. Pakistan have not won a Test series in England since 1996. They drew in 2016 and again in 2018, then lost in 2020, and they have not been back since.

England are rebuilding too, under Joe Root and with Jacob Bethell missing the series, so there is less certainty in this fixture than usual on either side. Whether that helps a Pakistan side with four uncapped players in it is a question the first morning at Headingley will start answering. Babar, at least, will be there for it.

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