The Pakistan captain Babar Azam has been ruled out of the first test against England due to a right-hand injury.
He suffered an injury to the middle finger of his right hand while batting against the West Indies and aggravated it during a warm-up game in Beckenham. In his absence, Salman Agha will be the interim captain for the upcoming test.
Ahmed confirmed that Babar’s finger is not broken, but the team hopes the pain settles in time for the second Test at Lord’s.
Babar’s absence will be a significant blow after he recently returned as captain and was Pakistan’s leading run scorer against West Indies.
Salman Agha is set to captain the side for the first time in Tests. Shan Masood, who was replaced by Babar Azam, also returns to the squad after recovering from a broken finger.
He was struck on the hand by Jayden Seales during the first test against West Indies last month, due to which he was ruled out of the second test and kept out of the Beckenham warm-up game as well.
Despite their setback, Safaraz is confident about the squad’s preparation, pointing to the warm-up match as evidence the group had covered what was needed with both bat and ball heading into the series.
“Our practice match gave us a lot of confidence,” said Ahmed. “Whatever bases we needed to cover with bat and ball, we did. We believe we’ll do very well here.”
Currently, Pakistan are in 8th position in the WTC 2025-27 points table.
On the other hand, England will be also entering the test series with a change in the captaincy. Joe Root has taken over the captaincy after the retirement of Ben Stokes. The first game of the series will be played starting on August 19 at Headingley.
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