Three Stints, Twelve Losses, And A Pace Attack Without Shaheen — Pakistan's Reset Is Pure PCB

In November 2023, Babar Azam stepped down from the Pakistan captaincy after a World Cup group-stage exit. In March 2024, the PCB brought him back for white-ball duties. In October 2024, he walked away again. Now, in July 2026, he has been handed the Test captaincy for a third stint — because there is nobody else the PCB trusts, and everybody else they tried has a record that reads like a relegation battle.

The announcement, made on July 5 by Aaqib Javed's selection committee, was treated as breaking news by nobody who follows Pakistan cricket. The revolving door had completed another rotation. The only surprise was that it took this long.

Let's not pretend this is unfair. Shan Masood led Pakistan in 16 Tests and lost 12 of them. That is the worst record by any Pakistan captain in their first 16 matches in charge. He equalled Misbah-ul-Haq's joint-longest losing streak for a Pakistan captain — seven consecutive Test defeats — and was in charge when Pakistan finished dead last in the 2023-25 World Test Championship cycle.

To his credit, Masood's own batting improved under the burden. A pre-captaincy average of 28.51 climbed to 34.06, with two centuries and seven fifties during his tenure. But a captain's job is to win matches, and twelve losses from sixteen is not a record that survives any performance review in any sport.

Context has a way of rehabilitating reputations. When Babar Azam stepped down in 2023, the narrative was that he had failed on the biggest stages — World Cup knockouts, away series against top opposition. The number crunchers pointed out that his 10 wins in 20 Tests came heavily against lower-ranked sides. Valid criticisms.

But 10 wins in 20 now looks like dynasty-level success compared to 3 in 16. A 50% win rate against Masood's 18.75% is not a marginal improvement — it is a different universe. Babar's reign included clean sweeps in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and a 2-0 home series win over South Africa. Were those series against the best? No. Did Pakistan play with direction and intent? Undeniably.

The PCB has effectively admitted, through two captaincy changes and eighteen months of chaos, that the problem was never Babar. Or at least, it was never only Babar.

If the captaincy change was the expected headline, the squad composition was the real shock. Shaheen Shah Afridi — Pakistan's most recognisable fast bowler, their leading wicket-taker across formats in the last five years — has been dropped from the Test setup entirely. So has Naseem Shah.

The official line is workload management. The selection committee, through Misbah-ul-Haq, explained that neither bowler has been playing four-day cricket and their preparation is not aligned with the longer format. Fair enough on paper. But Shaheen himself pushed back against the decision.

Sources close to the squad confirm Shaheen was "not happy" with the decision. He is 26 years old, has 126 Test wickets in 34 matches, and believes he still has years of red-ball cricket ahead of him. But the numbers since his return from the knee injury in late 2023 tell a more complicated story: 27 wickets in 16 innings at an average of 40.11 and a strike rate of 67.6. That is not the Shaheen who dismantled Australia in Rawalpindi or tore through Sri Lanka in Galle.

The PCB's gamble is clear — park Shaheen in white-ball cricket, where he remains devastating, and rebuild the Test pace attack around younger, hungrier bowlers. Mohammad Abbas, Khurram Shahzad, and Aamir Jamal are now the frontline options. It is a coherent strategy. It is also the kind of calculated risk that only works if the replacements actually perform in the Caribbean heat and English seam conditions.

The squad for West Indies and England contains four uncapped players: left-arm spinner Ali Usman, batter Muhammad Awais Zafar, pacer Ubaid Shah, and wicketkeeper-batter Muhammad Ghazi Ghori. In isolation, picking domestic performers is exactly what Pakistan should do. In context — touring the Caribbean in July and English seam conditions in August with half your pace attack unproven at international level — it feels like faith dressed up as strategy.

The West Indies series (two Tests, July 25 to August 6) will be challenging enough. The England tour (three Tests, August 19 to September 13) could be a bloodbath. Pakistan's record in England across the last decade is poor even with their best players available. Without Shaheen, without Naseem, and with a captain on his third appointment, the margin for error is non-existent.

Zoom out and the pattern is unmistakable. Pakistan appointed Babar. Babar resigned. Pakistan appointed Masood. Masood lost everything. Pakistan reappointed Babar. At some point, the captain stops being the variable and the system becomes the constant.

The PCB has cycled through coaches, selectors, and captains at a rate that would embarrass a mid-table football club. Aaqib Javed's selection committee is itself barely a year old. The previous regime that chose Masood has been dismantled. Mohsin Naqvi approved Babar's return from the chairman's office. The chain of accountability is so long that responsibility diffuses into nothing.

Babar will do what he always does — score runs, lead with quiet authority, and absorb criticism with silence. Whether that is enough to win five Tests across two of the toughest tours on the calendar is a different question entirely. The PCB has given him the job, the squad, and the pressure. What they have not given him is time — because in Pakistan cricket, that is the one resource no captain ever receives.

Babar Azam's third stint as Pakistan Test captain is the right decision made in the wrong way, at the wrong time, for reasons that only look logical because the alternative was worse. He should never have been replaced by Masood. Masood should never have been allowed to lose 12 of 16 before the axe fell. Shaheen should have been managed into Test fitness, not managed out of it.

But here we are. Pakistan fly to the Caribbean in three weeks with a new-old captain, a depleted pace attack, four uncapped players, and the same institutional chaos that has defined the PCB for a decade. Somewhere in Lahore, a selector is already drawing up the contingency plan for when this stint doesn't work either.