Babar Azam had already told Pakistan most of what they needed to know at Beckenham. Struck on the right hand in the tour match, he walked off and did not come back, and it was Salman Agha who finished the game as stand-in skipper. On Tuesday, barely 24 hours before the first Test at Headingley, Salman Agha became Pakistan captain for real.
Pakistan’s captain has been ruled out of Wednesday’s opener, with ESPNcricinfo reporting he has been unable to shake off a blow to the same hand he was hit on during the second Test against West Indies earlier this month. “Pakistan captain Babar Azam is unavailable for the first Test match,” head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed said. “Salman Agha will be the captain for the first Test.”
So the tourists arrive in Leeds with a leader who has never done the job in this format. Agha captains Pakistan’s T20I side and has spent years inside the team’s leadership group, but he has never taken charge of a Test XI. He does so on the ground where Joe Root begins his second stint as England captain, in a series two sides in visible disrepair both need to win.
What the Salman Agha Pakistan captain call means
The timing is unkind. Babar had only been reappointed captain before the West Indies tour, and he used it to remind everyone what he is: ESPNcricinfo notes he was the leading run-scorer in that series, with two half-centuries and a pair of flamboyant sixes to close out the second Test. Pakistan lose their best batter and their designated leader in the same line of a team sheet.
Agha’s own recent returns sharpen the problem. He managed 20 runs in three innings in the Caribbean, and now has to organise a bowling attack, set fields and bat in a top order that has been rebuilt more than once this year. It is a lot to ask of a first-time Test captain against the swinging ball in a Yorkshire August.
There is, at least, better news elsewhere. Shan Masood — whose own grim spell as captain ended when Babar was handed the role back — has recovered from a fractured finger and comes into the side. Sarfaraz indicated Babar’s absence had left a selection question about how to add heft to the middle order, with Saud Shakeel among those expected to feature after a hundred at Beckenham.
Two teams in the same predicament
This is not a series between settled sides. In its match preview, ESPNcricinfo places England seventh and Pakistan eighth in the current World Test Championship table, and points out that England have won two of their last ten Tests, Pakistan two of their last seven, with neither having won a series since late 2024. Pakistan have not won a Test tour of these islands since 1996.
England’s summer has been no calmer. Ben Stokes retired from international cricket in June, Brendon McCullum’s Test tenure ended in July — he stays on as white-ball head coach — and Marcus Trescothick takes the dugout in interim charge while the permanent appointment settles. Pakistan, meanwhile, are on their fifth Test coach since 2023-24, a list that runs through Jason Gillespie and Aaqib Javed to Sarfaraz.
A door left open
Crucially, this is not a tour ending. Sarfaraz said there was no fracture in the middle finger, and that Babar has “quite a bit of pain” but should have time before the second Test at Lord’s. For now the absence is confined to Headingley, where Pakistan’s match-day decision on Babar has been resolved a day early and in the least helpful direction.
Which leaves Agha where he was at Beckenham: holding a job he did not expect to be holding, only this time with a WTC series and a captain’s reputation attached to it. Pakistan have made a habit of finding leaders by accident. Occasionally, they have found good ones.
