Pakistan lose Babar the day before Headingley, and Salman Agha has never captained a Test
Babar Azam’s right hand has not healed, so Pakistan begin a three-Test tour of England without their captain and the leading run-scorer from their last series.
Aug 19, 2026
Pakistan’s tour of England was reshaped by one delivery in a three-day warm-up match at Beckenham last week. Manny Lumsden, a young Hampshire seamer, struck Babar Azam on the right hand. Babar retired hurt on five from 17 balls, did not take the field again in that game, and he is not in the side for the first Test at Headingley either.
No fracture, but the pain has not gone
Coach Sarfaraz Ahmed confirmed it at the ground. “Pakistan captain Babar Azam is unavailable for the first Test match,” he said. “Salman Agha will be the captain for the first Test.”
The finger is not broken, which is the useful half of the news. “The medical team is assessing Babar. He has quite a bit of pain in the finger,” Sarfaraz said. “There are still a few days to go before the second Test. Hopefully, he will recover by then.” Pakistan are treating this as one match lost, not a series.
It is also the same hand he was hit on during the second Test against West Indies at the start of this month. A second blow to a joint that had not fully settled is why the mood in the camp darkened by degrees over several days instead of turning on a single scan.
Pakistan lose the batter who was scoring runs
Babar has spent years fielding questions about a missing Test hundred. He has not made one since 26 December 2022, when he finished 161 not out against New Zealand in Karachi. What he found in the Caribbean was the nearest thing to an answer he has managed since: 193 runs in four innings at 96.50, more than anyone else in the series, and a share of the player-of-the-series award with Justin Greaves.
He had also only just been given the job back. The PCB reappointed him as Test captain on 5 July, replacing Shan Masood, for the two Tests in the Caribbean and the three here.
Agha inherits the armband and a bad run of his own
Agha is not a surprise choice. He captains the T20I side, plays all three formats, and has sat in Pakistan’s leadership group for years. He also took over at Beckenham the moment Babar was hurt, so he has already had a few days of the role.
The runs are the problem. Agha scored 20 in three innings in the West Indies, and he now leads a batting order at a ground where Pakistan need something they have not managed in three decades. Their last Test series win in England was in 1996, when they took it 2-0 under Wasim Akram.
Where the batting weight comes from now
Sarfaraz said the absence leaves a real selection question. Shan Masood returns to the top order after recovering from a finger fracture of his own, sustained when Jayden Seales hit him in the first Test in the Caribbean in July. Saud Shakeel takes a place in the middle.
After that it gets awkward. One option is Aamer Jamal, picked to lengthen the batting and shorten the tail. Pakistan tried exactly that in the first Test against West Indies and got very little from him with bat or ball, so the fix arrives with a recent argument against it attached.
Sarfaraz is not presenting any of this as a crisis. “Our practice match gave us a lot of confidence,” he said. “Whatever bases we needed to cover with bat and ball, we did. We believe we’ll do very well here.” Pakistan won that game by seven wickets. Play at Headingley starts at 3:30pm IST.