The PCB’s selectorial fury has, perhaps predictably, transcended formats. After a display at the T20 World Cup underwhelming enough for the board to hand out personalised PKR 5 million fines to participants at the tournament, the selection committee has axed a number of them from Pakistan’s upcoming tour of Bangladesh. This despite the fact that the series is an entirely different format altogether, as Pakistan play three ODIs to kick off their preparations for next year’s ODI World Cup.

A number of things stand out in the squad Pakistan announced, from who has been dropped to the players that come in, as well as the overall makeup and balance of the team.

T20 anger = ODI axing

That strength of emotion appears to have been the guiding principle for selection. It explains why Saim Ayub, who had an indifferent time at the T20 World Cup, will not travel for the ODI series in Bangladesh. Viewed independently of the World Cup, any statistical justification for his removal is based on shaky ground. In a brief, 17-game career, he has already played leading roles in famous series wins over Australia and South Africa away. His last 13 innings have seen three hundreds and two half-centuries, and his ever-improving fingerspin lends balance to the side, especially in the slower, spinning conditions Dhaka will throw up. He averages a smidge under 47 in the format with the bat, higher than any player actually in the squad.

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One player who boasts a superior average is Babar Azam – also excluded from the trip to Bangladesh. There is, frankly put, no universe in which Babar does not make Pakistan’s ODI squad for the next World Cup, suggesting his omission is an expression of frustration with his showing at the T20 World Cup rather than any strategic calculation. ODI cricket has long been Babar’s best format, one he has turned to for confidence building at times when T20Is and Tests are less charitable to him. He may have had an indifferent 2025, but just two games ago, he scored his first international hundred in a match-winning ODI chase against Sri Lanka. It is one he will not get a chance to build on in Bangladesh because of a poor T20 World Cup he should probably never have been in Sri Lanka for anyway.

Babar Azam walks back after a painstaking 25 off 24 AFP/Getty Images

The new arrivals

Well, Ayub and Babar needed replacing, and the PCB has turned to domestic cricket in search. Nothing inherently wrong with that, or indeed with giving young new players exposure to international cricket in a low-profile series that will ultimately be forgotten about soon after it ends. The concern, however, is the actual selections seem less rooted in List A or 50-over experience than in their burgeoning reputations at T20 power hitters. This format-mixing is an inveterate mistake seemingly no PCB administration is immune to.

For one, Sahibzada Farhan is in the squad and will make his ODI debut after his T20 heroics over the past month. Farhan’s confidence and form may see him do well, but he has not played a 50-over game since 2024; there cannot be any ODI-relevant data that could have influenced his selection.

Moreover, the List A records of some of the other call-ups simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Ghazi Ghouri, who Islamabad United recently signed as a PSL prospect, has played 17 List A matches, with an average just over 20 and a strike rate under 80. Even more strangely, another call-up – legspin allrounder Saad Masood – has played just three List A games all told. He has scored 57 runs, and averages 113 with the ball. His T20I batting and bowling records are more impressive, but, again, this is not a T20I series. Ghouri and Masood are 22 and 21 respectively, and have all the time in the world up become entirely legitimate ODI prospects for Pakistan, though those credentials should ideally be forged domestically in the first place.

(No) left-arm finger spin

Mohammad Nawaz, too, was the casualty of a poor T20 World Cup, but independent of that specific call, the side is completely denuded of one specific kind of bowler – the one kind of bowler Bangladeshi conditions have tended to be most generous to. The squad that will play the three ODIs does not possess a single left-arm finger spinner, Pakistan instead opting for the wrist spin of Abrar Ahmed, as well as two younger wrist spinners in Faisal Akram and Saad Masood. The only left arm orthodox option open to Pakistan is in the form of batting allrounder Maaz Sadazqat, who counts his bowling as his secondary skill. It is a gap in Pakistan’s skillset that the home side could very well find ripe for exploitation.