Tayyab Arif made 57 off 51 balls on Test debut, and Pakistan closed day one in Rawalpindi on 281 for 5
Four Pakistan players made their Test debuts against Sri Lanka, two of them made fifties, and Saud Shakeel was 57 not out when bad light ended play.
Nov 9, 2026
Tayyab Arif needed 51 balls to make 57 on his Test debut, and by the time bad light took the players off in Rawalpindi on Monday, Pakistan’s reshaped side had 281 for 5 on the first day of their series against Sri Lanka.
Arif was one of four Pakistan debutants in a new-look XI under Babar Azam, along with Mohammad Taha, Arafat Minhas and Saqib Khan. Taha made a fifty as well.
Arif goes after the new ball
Kusal Mendis, in his first Test as Sri Lanka’s captain, won the toss and bowled first with four seamers on a green-looking surface. It did less than he hoped. Arif, 20, went at the new ball from the start, hitting nine fours and a six, and he and Azan Awais put on 86 for the first wicket.
Sri Lanka then took two wickets in four runs. Milan Rathnayaka had Awais caught behind for 30, and Asitha Fernando had Arif caught by Mendis at 90 for 2.
Babar, Taha and Shakeel rebuild
Babar and Taha added 69 for the third wicket before Dilshan Madushanka found the edge of Babar’s drive with a delivery that seamed away. Babar made 50 off 58 balls. Taha took 105 balls over his 51, six fours in it, and fell heaving across the line at the left-arm spinner Sonal Dinusha, caught by Dhananjaya de Silva at 227 for 4.
Fernando came back to have Salman Agha caught behind for 16, the fourth catch of the day for Mendis with the gloves. Saud Shakeel was still there at the close on 57 from 112 balls, with the wicketkeeper Ghazi Ghori on 7.
Fernando finished with 2 for 64, the best of the Sri Lanka figures. Rathnayaka conceded only 43 from his 16 overs. Madushanka went for 87 in 16.
A rebuilt Pakistan side
This is Pakistan’s first Test since a 3-0 defeat in England, and the selectors have changed a lot. “During the England series we had planned to give new players a chance, so I am ready to fight with these young players,” Babar said on Sunday.
Two of those young players made fifties on the first day. The frustrating bit, for Babar as much as anyone, is that he, Arif and Taha all reached 50 and none of them got to 60. The pitch flattened out as the day went on, so 281 for 5 is a good position rather than a commanding one, and Sri Lanka will want Shakeel early on Tuesday before the lower order gets going.
The second Test of the two-match series, which counts towards the World Test Championship, starts in Lahore on 17 November.