Babar Azam 

We take a look at some of the key talking points from the selection table as Pakistan named their 18-player squad to face England in a three-match series on home soil next month.

The series is very important to Pakistan because they want to keep up with the best teams, finish in the top two, and get into the World Test Championship final next year.

With a win-percentage of 51.85, Pakistan is fifth in the World Test Championship. They still have five Tests left in the World Test Championship—three against England in this series and three against New Zealand in the new year—to try to get into the final at The Oval next year.

Yasir Shah is back on the outside as the mysterious spinner that will be revealed.

Yasir Shah has contributed greatly to Pakistani cricket, having taken the fifth most Test wickets for the nation. However, the 36-year-old was not selected for the series against England, so selectors may be looking for a replacement.

The selection of uncapped leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed is risky, but based on his ability to confuse batters with his mix of leg-spin and wrong-uns, it could pay off handsomely.

Ahmed may only have 13 first-class matches to his name, but the 24-year-old has a total of 76 wickets at an average just north of 25 to go with his impressive record and on recent form looks a solid selection.

While Pakistan's two primary spinners are likely to be Mohammad Nawaz and Nauman Ali, Ahmed will give captain Babar Azam another option if the conditions favor the slower bowlers.

Haris Rauf needs to shine now that Shaheen Afridi is out of the picture.


Pakistan's concerns were confirmed when star pacer Shaheen Afridi was left out of the 18-player squad due to his ongoing knee injury. However, if fellow quick Haris Rauf can bring his white-ball form into the Test arena, it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Although the fact that Rauf has never represented his country in a Test match is somewhat surprising, the star right-armer still has time to make an impact in the longest format at the age of 29.

Even without Afridi, Pakistan still has a lot of good quicks in their team, with Faheem Ashraf, Mohammad Wasim Jr., Naseem Shah, and Rauf likely to compete for two or three pace spots in each Test.

Rauf's capacity to swing the old ball could be a weapon that Babar will hope to use as it merits recollecting that Australia pacers Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins were profoundly compelling in involving reverse swing during the three-match series in Pakistan recently.

Team Pakistan: Mohammad Rizwan, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shan Masood, Salman Agha, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Abdullah Shafique, Imam-ul-Haq, Faheem Ashraf, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Wasim Jr., Abrar Ahmed, Zahid Mahmood, Mohammad Nawaz, Azhar Ali, and Mohammad Ali are the captains of the team.

Pakistan Team Squad 

Changes to the regular batting lineup are minimal.

The impressive duo of Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq almost certainly will re-acquaint themselves as openers for the first Test of the series in Rawalpindi. Pakistan's top order appears to be settled and ready to score a lot of runs.

After that, Azhar Ali and Babar will most likely bat at numbers three and four, with talented left-hander Fawad Alam being the only notable batting absence from the team.

When Fawad played Australia earlier this year, he only managed to score 33 runs on four hits.Since the 37-year-old has left, selectors may give talented all-rounder Shan Masood another chance to prove that he can play middle order.

Pakistan has options after Sarfaraz's surprise.

Even though Pakistan's XI automatically includes the extremely dependable wicketkeeper and batsman Mohammad Rizwan, the inclusion of Sarfaraz Ahmed, the team's former captain, raises some questions.

Sarfaraz, 35, hasn't played in a Test since he played against South Africa in Johannesburg at the beginning of 2019; however, the batsman has been in great form recently in Pakistani domestic cricket.

The determined right-hander, who recently scored a century for Sindh in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, has scored 394 runs at an average of almost 44 in that competition this year.

Sarfaraz or Rizwan might be able to play as specialist batters.It will be interesting to see if the coaches want Sarfaraz to play a particular role or just bring his experience to the team during such a crucial series.