Pakistan sacks coach and sends seven players home after heavy defeat
Pakistan cricket entered a new phase of major restructuring just one day after England secured an unassailable 2-0 lead in the Test series at Lord's. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced on 31 August that it had released seven players from the squad for the final match in Birmingham and removed head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul from the coaching staff. According to the PCB's official statement, their roles for the third Test will be taken over by Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke, the pair who already work with Pakistan's white-ball cricket team. The changes followed a 194-run defeat at Lord's, with which England secured the series on 30 August before the final match. This represents an exceptionally extensive intervention in the squad in the middle of an away series, as Pakistan simultaneously changed two key coaching positions and almost half of the available group of players.
In its official statement, the PCB used the wording that Sarfaraz Ahmed and Umar Gul had been "released", while British media such as The Guardian described their departure as a sacking following the lost series. In the same move, Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, Ali Usman, Aamir Jamal, Muhammad Awais Zafar and Khurram Shahzad were removed from the squad. The board did not provide individual explanations for each player, so it is not possible to attribute every decision solely to form or on-field performance. This particularly applies to Imam-ul-Haq, about whom the PCB announced as recently as 28 August that he had suffered a low-grade left calf strain at Lord's and was being monitored by the medical team. Nevertheless, the scale of the changes clearly shows that this is not a routine rotation ahead of the final match, but an attempt to immediately alter the team's dynamics and selection criteria.
Lord's defeat triggered the major cut
The second Test in London ended on 30 August with England winning by 194 runs, and the PCB's official report shows just how large the gap between the two teams was. England made 290 runs in the first innings, while Pakistan replied with only 110, giving the hosts a lead of 180 runs. England added 208 in the second innings and set Pakistan a target of 389, but the visiting side finished on 194. Saud Shakeel was by far Pakistan's most successful batter in the final chase with 97 runs, while Shan Masood added 26, but the rest of the lineup did not provide enough support. England's fast bowlers dominated again: Ollie Robinson took eight wickets in the match, four in each Pakistan innings, while Josh Tongue and Jofra Archer also played important roles.
Pakistan also produced several individually very strong passages of play, making the final result even more frustrating for the visitors. Mohammad Abbas took a total of nine England wickets at Lord's, including five for 57 runs in the second innings, earning a place on the ground's famous honours board. Mohammad Ali and Khurram Shahzad also found ways through England's batting lineup, and Pakistan managed to take all ten wickets in both England innings. The problem was that their own batting once again collapsed at crucial moments. Pakistan fell to 110 in the first innings, while in the second, after an early score of 14 for three wickets, only the partnership between Shakeel and Masood briefly stabilised the situation. According to official PCB data, the pair added 97 runs together, but there was no turnaround after their partnership was broken.
The match also had a complicated context in terms of conditions at Lord's. Rain significantly shortened the third day, while the pitch had been the subject of discussion throughout the summer because of pronounced lateral movement and unpredictable bounce. That does not, however, change the broader picture of Pakistan's series, because the batting problems had also appeared in the first Test in Leeds. Pakistan did not reach 200 runs in any of their four completed innings in this series: they made 171 and 135 at Headingley and 110 and 194 at Lord's. That recurring weakness, rather than just one poor day in London, created the pressure under which the board's management decided to act before the tour was over.
Difficult start to the series in Leeds had already raised questions
The first Test at Headingley ended on 21 August with England winning by an innings and 103 runs. According to the PCB report, Pakistan made 171 in the first innings, England replied with 409, and Pakistan were then dismissed for 135 in their second attempt. Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue took five wickets each in Pakistan's first innings, while England's large advantage was created after the home batters converted a strong position into a total of 409 runs. Pakistan played that match without regular captain Babar Azam, who was recovering from a finger injury, so Salman Ali Agha led the team. Salman is now among the seven players released from the squad before the third Test.
The two results together explain why the defeat at Lord's had consequences far greater than the loss of a single series. In Leeds, Pakistan failed to stay in the match long enough even though they had some good individual performances, such as five wickets from left-arm spinner Ali Usman. At Lord's, meanwhile, the bowling unit managed to dismiss England twice, but the batting lineup once again produced totals that were too low. Across four innings, Pakistan therefore accumulated a total of 610 runs, averaging 152.5 per innings, illustrating the continuity of the problem without any need to dramatise individual mistakes. The board did not publish a detailed analysis of the reasons for the changes in its statement, but their timing shows that the assessment of performance was clearly not postponed until the end of the tour.
Seven leave, seven new players arrive in Birmingham
For the final Test, which begins on 9 September at Edgbaston in Birmingham, the PCB has called up seven replacements. Two new members of the group already have Test experience: Saim Ayub has played eight Tests and Abdullah Fazal two. The remaining five players have yet to appear in Test cricket, although some already have international experience in other formats or notable results in domestic competitions. Arafat Minhas, a left-handed all-rounder who bowls spin, has according to the PCB appeared in three One Day Internationals and four T20 internationals. He is joined by left-arm fast bowler Mohammad Imran Jnr, wicketkeeper Saad Baig and fast-bowling all-rounders Mohammad Imran, also known as Imran Randhawa, and Razaullah.
Saad Baig comes into the national team with a particularly notable domestic credential. In its announcement of the new squad, the PCB identified him as the player of the tournament in the 2025/26 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Pakistan's main domestic multi-day competition. His selection, along with the inclusion of several bowling-oriented all-rounders, suggests that the selectors want to broaden the number of options and increase competition within the team. However, the board has not announced the starting eleven for Edgbaston in advance, so it remains uncertain how many of the five players without a Test appearance will actually make their debuts. The very fact that they have been called up in the middle of the series nevertheless means the coaching staff will have the option of changing the team far more radically than seemed imaginable after the original touring squad was named.
The updated squad for Birmingham, according to the PCB, consists of Babar Azam as captain, Abdullah Fazal, Abdullah Shafique, Arafat Minhas, Azan Awais, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Imran, Mohammad Imran Jnr, Muhammad Ghazi Ghori, Razaullah, Saad Baig, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Saud Shakeel, Shan Masood and Ubaid Shah. This means that some of the players who offered the strongest resistance at Lord's remain in the team, above all Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Abbas. Babar Azam also remains captain after returning to the squad in the second Test. The structure of the new group combines several more experienced Test players with a large number of younger or unproven options, turning Edgbaston both into a match to avoid a 0-3 defeat and a kind of test of the future playing group.
Hesson takes over the Test team, Noffke replaces Gul
The biggest change outside the squad itself concerns the leadership of the national team. Sarfaraz Ahmed, the former Pakistan captain, took over as red-ball head coach earlier in 2026. The PCB appointed him ahead of the Test series against Bangladesh, highlighting his experience as a former international and captain who led Pakistan to the ICC Champions Trophy title in 2017. Umar Gul, a former fast bowler with 47 Test appearances, worked as bowling coach. Their tenure has now been interrupted in the middle of the England tour, and the board did not state in its 31 August announcement whether this is a permanent termination of their roles or merely a change for the remainder of the series.
Mike Hesson is not a new name in Pakistan's system. The PCB appointed him head coach of the national side for the white-ball formats in May 2025, and before that he coached, among others, the national teams of New Zealand and Kenya. Ashley Noffke has already worked alongside Hesson as bowling coach in Pakistan's white-ball setup. Their move to the Test team therefore provides a degree of continuity in working methods, but at the same time raises the question of how far Pakistan's system will again move toward a more unified model of management across formats. The PCB has not yet announced a long-term plan for the Test coaching staff after Edgbaston, so the only certainty is that Hesson and Noffke will take charge of the team for the final match of this series.
There is little time for structural changes before Hesson's first assignment in the Test environment under this arrangement. There is just over a week between the announcement of the new squad and the start of the match on 9 September, while some of the new players still have to arrive in England and join the preparations. The priority will therefore likely be selecting a functional eleven, clearly defining roles and reducing the number of repeated mistakes in batting and fielding. Given that the series has already been lost, the result in Birmingham will not change the winner of the contest, but it will strongly influence the assessment of whether the extraordinary cut produced a short-term response.
Results crisis is also visible in the World Test Championship
Pakistan's problems are not limited to this tour. The International Cricket Council (ICC), in its updated overview of the 2025-27 World Test Championship published after Lord's, states that Pakistan are last, ninth, with two wins from eight matches and a points percentage of 16.67. England moved up to sixth place with a percentage of 34.44 after two wins in the series. Pakistan are scheduled to play further series against Sri Lanka and New Zealand in the current WTC cycle after Edgbaston, so the result in Birmingham is not merely about avoiding a complete defeat in England. Every additional failure would further reduce the room for improving their position in a competition in which the two best teams qualify for the final.
The ICC also highlighted that Pakistan lost at Lord's despite Mohammad Abbas taking nine wickets, which neatly sums up the imbalance visible throughout the series. The bowlers created opportunities and kept England under pressure during certain periods, but Pakistan were unable to build their own innings for long enough. At Headingley, Robinson and Tongue shared all ten wickets in the visitors' first innings. At Lord's, Robinson was again player of the match, while Jofra Archer joined the attack that reduced Pakistan's first innings to 110. This is the pattern Hesson's staff must try to break as early as Birmingham, regardless of how many of the new players immediately receive an opportunity.
Edgbaston now becomes a test of both results and the team's direction
The third and final Test begins on 9 September at Edgbaston, with England entering the match having already secured the series and with the opportunity to win 3-0. Pakistan, on the other hand, arrive with a new head coach, a new bowling coach and seven replaced members of the squad. Under such circumstances, the final match is no longer merely the conclusion of an already decided series, but the first public test of the decisions the PCB made immediately after Lord's. Particular attention will be paid to whether the new lineup can stabilise the top and middle order while maintaining the quality that some of the bowlers already showed in London. It will be equally important to see whether the young players who have been called up receive an immediate opportunity or whether the coaching staff chooses a more gradual transition.
For the national team itself, the consequences of this cut extend beyond the England tour. Sarfaraz Ahmed had been installed as part of a separate red-ball coaching setup, while Hesson led the white-ball programme, so their sudden replacement shows how quickly the organisational model can change under results pressure. The PCB has not currently announced who will lead the Test team in the long term after the series, nor whether any of the seven released players will return for the next assignments. It is therefore too early to interpret this move as the definitive end of the international career of any of them. What has been confirmed is that Pakistan will look significantly different at Edgbaston from the team that began the series in Leeds, and that match will provide the first indication of whether the major cut has brought the change the board was seeking.
Sources:
- Pakistan Cricket Board - official announcement on the seven released players, seven replacements and changes to the coaching staff (link)
- Pakistan Cricket Board - official report and result of the second Test at Lord's (link)
- Pakistan Cricket Board - official report and result of the first Test at Headingley (link)
- Pakistan Cricket Board - announcement of the appointment of Sarfaraz Ahmed as red-ball head coach and Umar Gul as bowling coach in 2026 (link)
- Pakistan Cricket Board - announcement of the appointment of Mike Hesson as head coach of the white-ball national team (link)
- Pakistan Cricket Board - medical update on Imam-ul-Haq's injury at Lord's (link)
- International Cricket Council - updated 2025-27 World Test Championship standings after England's victory at Lord's (link)
- The Guardian - report on the sacking of Sarfaraz Ahmed and the major cut in the Pakistan team after the lost series (link)