Pakistan's Drastic Overhaul After England Defeats: Seven Dropped and Coach Removed
Pakistan have detonated their Test squad after two bruising defeats in England, sending seven players home, calling up a clutch of uncapped hopefuls and removing their head coach before the series is even over.
It is a reset of rare ferocity. And it comes with the series already lost.
Seven out, new era in overnight
After being outplayed in the first two Tests, Pakistan’s response ahead of the third match at Edgbaston on 9 September is nothing short of drastic.
- Five players who have featured in the series are out: Muhammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, Ali Usman and Khurram Shahzad have all been jettisoned.
- Aamir Jamal and Muhammad Awais Jafar, who did not play a Test on tour, have also been sent home.
In their place, a new wave arrives. Batters Saim Ayub and Abdullah Fazal, who both have previous Test experience, return to bolster a batting order that has repeatedly folded. Around them gathers a raw, untested core.
Spin-bowling all-rounder Arafat Minhas, left-arm seamer Mohammed Imran Jr, wicketkeeper Said Baig and all-rounders Mohammad Imran and Razaullah have all been called up and could yet be thrown straight into the fire in Birmingham.
This is not tinkering. It is surgery.
Coaching clear-out mid-series
The overhaul does not stop at the playing XI.
Head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and his assistant Umar Gul have been released from their roles with immediate effect. In step Pakistan’s white-ball coach Mike Hesson and former Australia seamer Ashley Noffke, who will take charge for the final Test.
To remove a head coach and dispatch seven players during a live series, on foreign soil, is virtually unheard of in modern Test cricket. Pakistan, though, have never been a side afraid of the dramatic gesture.
Abject with the bat, outclassed with the ball
The trigger for this sweeping reaction is obvious. Pakistan have been outclassed.
They lost the first Test at Headingley by an innings. At Lord’s, England wrapped up a 194-run victory. Across four innings, Pakistan have not once reached 200. The batting has been brittle, the resistance fleeting, the collapses relentless.
England have dominated with ball in hand, exposing technical flaws and mental fragility alike. Pakistan’s bowlers, meanwhile, have lacked the sustained threat to drag their side back into contests once the top order crumbled.
Something had to give. The board has decided almost everything must.
A familiar taste for the unconventional
For all the shock, there is a sense of familiarity about Pakistan’s reaction. This is a cricket nation with a long history of lurching from one extreme to another after defeat.
On England’s last tour of Pakistan in 2024, the hosts responded to a chastening first Test — when England piled up a total in excess of 800 — with a move that baffled plenty of observers: they chose to stage the second Test on the same Multan pitch.
They then attacked the surface with garden heaters and fans, trying to bake it dry and bring their spinners into the game. It worked. Pakistan won the next two Tests and turned a battering into a 2-1 series triumph.
That episode sits as a reminder: Pakistan’s wildest decisions have, at times, produced their finest comebacks.
Now they arrive at Edgbaston with a gutted squad, a new coaching team and a series already gone. The question is not whether this shake-up is bold. It is whether, once again, Pakistan’s taste for chaos can conjure order out of a tour in ruins.
