Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mike Hesson to oversee Pakistan’s red and white-ball camps at NCA in Lahore

The National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Lahore will be conducting training camps for red and white-ball cricketers across the summer. The camp for red-ball specialists will commence on Monday (June 8) and the white-ball cricketers will arrive at the academy on June 15, after which both camps will run simultaneously.

The two camps will run until Pakistan’s next Test and limited-overs assignments. The red-ball camp will last until July 10, after which a pre-tour camp for the two Tests against West Indies will be held before the team departs for the Caribbean, which is expected to be on July 15.

The white-ball camp will run until September 18, as Pakistan’s next white-ball assignments are the T20 Asian Games in Japan (September-October) and an ODI tri-series at home involving Sri Lanka and England (expected to be in October-November) after two home Tests against Sri Lanka.

Pakistan’s red-ball and white-ball head coaches, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mike Hesson, will supervise the respective camps, which will begin with 49 players – 22 for red-ball and 27 for white-ball. The NCA may add more players to the two camps and those who have contracts with English counties for this summer have not been included in these camps. They may be called up towards the end of the respective camps if they are in consideration for selection.

Sarfaraz and Hesson will swap players as the camps continue. Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan’s ODI captain, is initially named among the 27 white-ball players, but he is also expected to work on his longer-format bowling over the next month. Shaheen and others involved in the recent three-ODI series against Australia will join the camp from June 15.

Alongside working on their fitness and skills, the players will also be involved in practice and scenario-based matches.

“Both camps have been devised to prepare players for upcoming international and domestic events,” the PCB said in a media release. “During the camps, the players will work with National and NCA coaches alongside PCB Medical staff on their skills and fitness. The players will also have one-on-one sessions with coaches to better understand the skills and fitness requirements at the international level.”

Pakistan have been below par on the field and the two head coaches and the selectors will be pinning their hopes that these prolonged camps change that.

Though Pakistan recently completed a 2-1 series win against Australia, it was achieved in conditions heavily favouring the home side, with all three matches played on rank turners despite the tourists being under-strength. Pakistan had lost a three-match ODI series in Bangladesh before this series and crashed out of the T20 World Cup earlier this year in the Super Eights, which marked the fourth consecutive instance of the team failing to make it to the knockouts of an ICC white-ball tournament. They failed to go past the group stage in the 2023 ODI World Cup, 2024 T20 World Cup, and the home Champions Trophy of 2025.

Their Test performances are more worrisome. They have not won a Test away from home since 2023 and recently received a 2-0 drubbing in Bangladesh. They have won only one match out of four in this World Test Championship cycle and sit eighth on the nine-team table. They finished the last cycle at the bottom.

Pakistan have back-to-back Test series lined up over the next few months, playing West Indies in July, England in August-September, before they host Sri Lanka in September-October.

Pakistan’s 22 red-ball camp players

Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Fazal, Abrar Ahmed, Ali Usman, Amad Butt, Azan Awais, Babar Azam, Imam ul Haq, Khurram Shehzad, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Rizwan, Muhammad Awais Zafar, Muhammad Ghazi Ghori, Obaid Shah, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Saqib Khan, Saud Shakeel, Shahnawaz Dahani, Shahzad Gul, Shan Masood

Pakistan’s 27 white-ball camp players

Abdul Samad, Abdul Subhan, Ahmed Daniyal, Akif Javed, Ali Raza, Arafat Minhas, Faisal Akram, Fakhar Zaman, Farhan Yousaf, Haider Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Khawaja Muhammad Nafay, Maaz Sadaqat, Mohammad Salman Mirza, Naseem Shah, Razaullah, Rohail Nazir, Saad Baig, Saad Masood, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Sameer Minhas, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shamyl Hussain, Sufyan Moqim, Usman Khan

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