LAHORE: Pakistan have unveiled a new-look T20I squad for September’s Asian Games 2026 in Japan, with Sahibzada Farhan named as captain and Abdul Samad as vice-captain in the absence of their frontline players.

The ten-team tournament will see the six highest-ranked sides — including Pakistan — enter at the quarter-final stage, with qualifiers for the remaining two places held from 24 to 26 September. The quarter-finals follow on 28 and 29 September, the semi-finals on 1 October and the gold medal match on 3 October.

Sahibzada has represented Pakistan in 46 T20Is, while Abdul Samad has appeared in five. The squad also includes Akif Javed, Ali Raza, Maaz Sadaqat and Saad Masood, all of whom have been selected for T20Is for the first time, while Ahmed Daniyal, Arafat Minhas, Haider Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Mohammad Salman Mirza and Sufyan Moqim have been recalled.

From Pakistan’s last T20I assignment – the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, where they reached the Super Eight stage – only Sahibzada Farhan, Abrar Ahmed, Saim Ayub and Usman Khan have been retained for the Asian Games.

No explanation or selection rationale has been provided by the selectors. However, player workload appears the most likely reason — most of Pakistan’s frontline T20I players also feature in the longer formats, and Pakistan are scheduled to play five Tests between 25 July and 13 September, touring the West Indies and England. A home ODI tri-series featuring England and Sri Lanka is scheduled for October, and the 2026-27 season also includes four home Tests against Sri Lanka and New Zealand. The selectors appear to have opted for a managed rotation to ensure their key players are fresh for a demanding programme ahead.

Notably, defending champions India named a full-strength squad for the Asian Games last week. While Shreyas Iyer replaced Suryakumar Yadav as captain, the Indian selectors included the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravi Bishnoi, Harshit Rana and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi — a stark contrast to Pakistan’s approach.

The other participating nations are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Oman and Sri Lanka.

PAKISTAN SQUAD: Sahibzada Farhan (captain), Abdul Samad (vice-captain), Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Akif Javed, Ali Raza, Arafat Minhas, Haider Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Maaz Sadaqat, Mohammad Salman Mirza, Saad Masood, Saim Ayub, Sufyan Moqim and Usman Khan (wicketkeeper).