Pakistan will walk out in Mirpur on Friday without Babar Azam, their most dependable Test batter of the last decade. A sore left knee, picked up on the eve of the match, has ruled him out of the first Test against Bangladesh. Team management said the joint is “being monitored by the medical panel” and stopped short of confirming whether he will miss the whole two-match series.
That single paragraph sums up the main news. Everything that follows is, really, context.
Babar had arrived in Dhaka late on Monday, still running on the adrenaline of Peshawar Zalmi’s Pakistan Super League triumph. He topped the tournament charts with 569 runs and looked in decent rhythm during two light training sessions at the Shere Bangla. Then, early on Thursday, he woke up complaining of knee pain; the physios advised caution and the selectors took the conservative option.
It is the first away Test he will sit out since the New Zealand tour of early 2021. He did miss a couple of home games versus England at the end of 2024 – that brief omission caused a stir at the time – but otherwise he has been a permanent ink mark on the team sheet.
With Babar sidelined, Pakistan’s batting card needs shuffling. Imam-ul-Haq and Shan Masood remain the designated openers. One of the uncapped pair, Azam Awais or Abdullah Fazal, was expected to wait his turn; now both may be pressed into action, or the selectors could bump Mohammad Rizwan or Saud Shakeel up a slot and slip seam-bowling all-rounder Amad Butt into the lower middle order. Either way there will be at least one debut cap on Friday morning.
This series is Pakistan’s first overseas assignment of the current World Test Championship cycle. They split their only previous set, 1-1 at home to South Africa, which leaves little wiggle room if they wish to stay in touch with the frontrunners. The historical warning is fresh, too: Bangladesh swept Pakistan 2-0 when the sides last met in Tests, in Karachi and Rawalpindi two seasons ago.
Babar’s form, at least in white-ball cricket, had hinted at a productive red-ball month. “Runs are runs, whatever the colour of the ball,” he said after the PSL final, refusing to entertain talk of switching formats. That line has aged quickly. For now, Pakistan must cope without him, and he faces a brief but awkward race against time to make the second Test, starting in Chattogram next week.
