Pakistan handed Test debuts to four players in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Monday, 9 November, after Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bowl first. Tayyab Arif, Mohammad Taha, Saqib Khan and Arafat Minhas all took their maiden Test caps in the same XI, more than a third of the side, in a two-Test series that counts towards the World Test Championship. The rebuild now has five days to prove itself, and the captain leading it has not scored a Test century in 40 innings.
The XI that walked out is not the squad that was named
PakMirror reported on Saturday that the rebuilt squad carried six uncapped players. Two days before the Test, the board changed the squad again. Four players were added on 7 November, Aamer Jamal, Ali Shabbir, Tayyab Arif and Saqib Khan, while Abdullah Fazal and Ali Usman were released. Fazal had been among the leading contenders to open the batting, according to a report in The Express Tribune on 4 November. He did not make the XI. Tayyab Arif, who was not in the original 14, opens the batting instead, alongside Azan Awais.
Three of the six uncapped players in the 16-man squad made the XI: Tayyab Arif, Mohammad Taha and Saqib Khan. The fourth debutant, Arafat Minhas, took his maiden Test cap alongside them, while Sameer Minhas, Mohammad Suleman and Ali Shabbir were left out. Salman Ali Agha, who scored 107 against Sri Lanka in the tri-series opener last month, holds the middle order at number six. Pakistan clinched the T20 series against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi last month.
What the four debutants earned it with
Tayyab Arif forced his way in with 727 runs in seven matches at an average of 66.09, including three centuries, in his maiden season in the Departmental First-Class Tournament for Kingsmen Academy. Mohammad Taha, 26, was the third-highest run scorer in the President’s Trophy Grade-I with 730 runs in seven matches, including three centuries and a highest score of 225. Saqib Khan took 47 wickets in nine matches at 20.60, with best figures of seven for 34, in Karachi Blues’ title-winning Quaid-e-Azam Trophy campaign. Arafat Minhas scored 941 runs in 17 first-class matches at 32.44, with one century, four fifties and a highest score of 152, and took 22 wickets. Between them, the three debutant batters scored 2,398 first-class runs, a PakMirror calculation from the published figures, before any of them had played a Test.
Babar’s two problems: selection and his own bat
Babar Azam said on Sunday that selection was not in his hands and that he simply gave his inputs, adding that his job was to get the best out of the players he was given. He was reappointed Test captain in July 2026, and the side he leads into this series is the most changed of his tenure. His own form is the second problem. Babar has gone 40 Test innings without a century, his last hundred coming against New Zealand in Karachi in December 2022, when he made 161. The closest he has come since was 88 against West Indies at Port of Spain in August. “I know I am not performing,” he admitted before the series. Pakistan’s last Test series ended in a 3-0 whitewash in England, where seven players were sent home after the second Test.
The table says this series cannot save the campaign
The World Test Championship table explains why this series matters and why it cannot fix Pakistan’s campaign on its own. Pakistan are ninth and last on 4.63 per cent, with two wins from nine Tests and 19 points deducted for slow over rates. Sri Lanka are seventh on 33.33 per cent. Even a 2-0 sweep would lift Pakistan only to about 22 per cent, by the points arithmetic, and Pakistan would stay ninth whatever happens against Sri Lanka. The head-to-head record favours the hosts: 59 Tests, 23 wins for Pakistan, 17 for Sri Lanka and 19 draws. This is Sri Lanka’s first Test tour of Pakistan since 2019, and Kusal Mendis is captaining Sri Lanka in Tests for the first time. The second Test follows from 17 to 21 November at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
Three things to watch before Lahore
First, whether all four debutants keep their places for Lahore, or another reshuffle follows a bad result in Rawalpindi. Second, whether Babar ends the wait that began in December 2022 with a century in front of a home crowd. Third, whether a home win moves Pakistan off the bottom of the World Test Championship table, or whether 4.63 per cent leaves them ninth even after a 2-0 sweep. More Pakistan sports news.
