Shaheen Alongside Babar: A Lesson in Group Protection from the Rawalpindi Pre-Series Presser

The first page of my notebook does not contain a scorecard. It says: "Rawalpindi, October, evening. The floodlights are warming up. Nobody has held a bat yet." For fifteen years I have sat beside this team on evenings like this, where the press conference becomes the first innings of the match. Ahead of Pakistan's home ODI tri-series against England and Sri Lanka between 18 and 31 October, what Shaheen Shah Afridi said at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium was not spin. It was a form of protection—and the way that protection was delivered exposes an old structural problem in Pakistan cricket.

The first thing I did was read the language of the question. The reporters had asked Shaheen about the pressure on Babar Azam, but the question was built around Test and domestic cricket. Babar made 97 runs in the three-match away Test series in England at an average of 24.25, with one half-century. In the President's Trophy Grade-I he made 58 runs in four innings for OGDCL at an average of 14.5. Both of those are red-ball numbers. Shaheen's rebuttal, however, went white-ball: the 2-1 ODI series win in Australia, 125 runs in three innings at 41.66, Pakistan's leading scorer.

The heart of the analysis sits here: the debate is naturally mixing two formats, because the format being questioned is not the format about to be played. The apparent weakness concerns Test cricket, and no Test will be played in the coming fortnight. The player is being defended with data from a format that is not directly relevant to the upcoming series. That is not a lie—it is an incomplete truth, and in cricket journalism an incomplete truth does more damage than a complete one, because it is never found out.

It reminded me of a rule I learned while filling a hundred-point notebook on Manchester City in 2026. When I tried to explain the inverted full-back roles, the naming itself created the confusion. Kyle Walker and Fabian Delph did different jobs in Pep Guardiola's 4-3-3, but both were called full-backs. Cricket is making the same error with Babar. A Test average discussed with ODI figures, and an international standard discussed with domestic ones, does not produce analysis.

Now the numbers, because numbers speak and they are not always comfortable. A Test average of 24.25 from 97 runs implies four dismissals. One of those innings was a half-century. So the other three innings produced roughly 45 runs together. This is not a moderate average; it is an average carrying the weight of one innings—one innings that shaped the look of the entire series. The ODI figure, by contrast, is internally coherent: 125 runs at 41.66 over three innings, with no not-out inflation. For a No. 3 that is a respectable floor. The evidence Shaheen used is not weak—it just answers the wrong question.

The domestic number interests me most. A player returning to first-class cricket after nine years cannot be expected to convert immediately. Red-ball length, new-ball movement, the density of close catchers—the body and eye need time to remember. I read 14.5 as a cost of adaptation rather than a decline. But the number reveals something larger: Pakistan's all-format stars have effectively stopped playing long-format domestic cricket. When international red-ball series arrive, there is no recent preparation to draw on. That is not an individual failure; it is a structural gap.

Rawalpindi is the silent character in this discussion. Historically it is among Pakistan's most batting-friendly surfaces—flat, with short straight boundaries and high first-innings scores. The ground does several things at once: it rewards stroke-play, temporarily hides red-ball technical flaws, and reduces spin differentiation. That last point marginally neuters Sri Lanka's principal weapon. Less fairly but just as importantly, Babar's first innings back may come on the easiest deck available—which is not only a cricketing advantage but a narrative one.

I do not want to rely on that advantage, and here is where I object. Running through the discussion is a two-way inconsistency nobody picked up. Shaheen's quote refers to "our last home ODI series", yet the statistics he used are from Australia—an away assignment. Either the quote was paraphrased, or two series have been merged. That is a fault in the reporting, not in the player. And when numbers are used to defend emotion, the provenance of the numbers should be checked first.

There is another variable the discussion missed. Babar missed the opening Test of the England series through injury. Returning from injury, in England, against the new ball, mid-series, is a perfectly valid explanation for a 24.25 average. The article neither confirms nor excludes it. Where a plausible explanation goes untested, the conclusion is not analysis—it is assumption.

Then there is age. Babar's date of birth is 15 October 2026—he turns 32 during this series. For a top-order batter working the upper edge of the 27-to-33 peak band, the recovery curve flattens. Slumps last longer, and the historical base rate for Pakistani star batters declining past 32 is not kind.

Shaheen's role offers another angle. As captain he was the sole voice, and he used himself as a shield for a senior player. That is a particular style of leadership—protect the group. The question is whether he was protecting the group from the truth or merely from public opinion. The difference matters.

A notebook from 2026 comes to mind. During Project Restart I was one of six reporters allowed inside an empty Etihad. Everyone wrote about Kevin De Bruyne's 20th assist and the record. My notebook filled with quieter things—a furloughed kit man's daily texts, the muted celebrations of players. Records end; people remain. The same question applies to Babar: averages end; the player remains.

When I wrote about Jack Grealish's £100m transfer in 2026, I worked from a three-item checklist—role, minutes, supporter expectation. For Babar it reads like this: role—No. 3, secure in white-ball cricket, questionable in red-ball. Minutes—probably three to six innings in this tri-series. Expectation—the memory of the Australia series. Of those three, only the second is under Babar's control; the other two are not.

The real meaning of the tri-series is here. It is not competition; it is rehabilitation. Three to six innings, history-friendly wickets, and two opponents one of whom has a weakened principal weapon on this ground. It is the cheapest path Pakistan has to rewriting a narrative. But cheap is not the same as durable. If the question is about Test cricket, the answer has to come in Test cricket, in domestic red-ball conditions, against the new ball—not inside white-ball boundaries.

I am not saying Shaheen was wrong. I am saying that the way the defence was framed obscured Babar's actual problem. Real protection means facing criticism, not stepping around it. The best way to protect a player is to make the work in front of him easier—and Rawalpindi has done exactly that, but only for a fortnight.

The question I am carrying out of this: when the Test series returns and the question returns with it, will Shaheen cite Australia again? Or will a new page of the notebook have been written by then? I will be watching—because my experience says the numbers in an empty ground tell the truth, and the applause in a full stadium usually does not.