Sajid Khan took eight wickets in Pakistan’s only Test win of the summer, and he is not in the squad for Sri Lanka
Babar Azam stays captain, three President’s Trophy batters get their first Test call-ups, and Ali Usman is the only specialist spinner left for November’s home series.
Oct 25, 2026
Babar Azam will captain an initial 14-man Pakistan squad in the two home Tests against Sri Lanka, which start in Rawalpindi on 9 November. The selectors named it on Saturday, and the bigger story is who is missing. Shan Masood is out. So are Mohammad Rizwan, Abdullah Shafique and the spinners Sajid Khan and Noman Ali.
Three batters from the President’s Trophy
The three uncapped players are all batters, and they have earned it in this season’s President’s Trophy Grade-I, the first-class competition that started in September. Mohammad Taha, a 26-year-old left-hander, leads the run charts with 730 from seven matches, with three hundreds and a top score of 225. Mohammad Suleman is fifth on 652, and he has three centuries too. Sameer Minhas, who played for Pakistan at Under-19 level, has 405 runs from seven matches in his first first-class season.
They will also play for the PCB Patron’s XI in a three-day warm-up against Sri Lanka at the Islamabad Club from 4 to 6 November. Two fast bowlers from that side will be added to the Test squad before the first Test.
Sajid out, Usman back
Sajid’s omission is the hardest one to explain. Pakistan won one of their five Tests in the West Indies and England this summer, by eight wickets at the Queen’s Park Oval in August. Sajid took four wickets in each innings, and his 4 for 32 and Ali Usman’s 4 for 39 bowled West Indies out for 117 in the second. In 2024 he and Noman shared 39 of England’s 40 wickets in the last two Tests of the home series, and Pakistan came from 1-0 down to win it 2-1.
That leaves Usman as the only specialist spinner. The left-armer made his Test debut in the Caribbean in July and took five wickets in the first Test at Headingley, then was one of seven players sent home before the third. Salman Ali Agha, who captained Pakistan in that first Test while Babar had a hand injury, was sent home before Edgbaston too, and is back as well. He bowls off-spin, and Arafat Minhas, an all-rounder in the squad, bowls left-arm spin. Unless another specialist spinner is added before 9 November, Pakistan will go into a home Test with only one.
Masood’s 95 at Edgbaston
Masood lost the captaincy to Babar in July. Aaqib Javed, the selector, said then that Masood’s own batting had been good but the side was not getting the results it needed. He made 109 in the first Test in Trinidad, missed the second with a finger injury, and his last Test innings was 95 at Edgbaston in his 50th Test. England won that game by eight wickets to finish the series 3-0, after winning at Headingley by an innings and 103 runs and at Lord’s by 194 runs.
Shafique’s case is simpler. He made 160 not out in the Port of Spain win, then 84 runs in six innings in England.
Pakistan are bottom of the World Test Championship table, and Sri Lanka are seventh. The second Test is at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore from 17 to 21 November.
Squad: Babar Azam (captain), Abdullah Fazal, Ali Usman, Arafat Minhas, Azan Awais, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Ghazi Ghori (wicketkeeper), Mohammad Suleman, Mohammad Taha, Razaullah, Saad Baig (wicketkeeper), Salman Ali Agha, Sameer Minhas, Saud Shakeel.