Mike Hesson has hit back hard at a report claiming Pakistan batter Salman Ali Agha refused to meet King Charles III, branding the story “made up” and “unacceptable journalism” as the fallout from Pakistan’s bruising Test tour of England took a fresh twist off the field.
The Telegraph reported on Thursday that one of the players dropped from Pakistan’s Test squad had declined to attend an audience with the monarch at Clarence House. Salman’s name quickly began circulating, turning a selection decision into a supposed political snub.
Hesson, Pakistan’s interim Test coach, was having none of it.
Speaking on Friday, he made it clear Salman never had the option of attending the royal engagement in the first place. The reason, he said, was simple: the middle-order batter had already been released from the squad, along with Imam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Rizwan, before the team list for Buckingham Palace was finalised.
“Salman Ali Agha, as I’ve said, the three players were released from the squad before I arrived, well before Buckingham Palace,” Hesson said, as quoted by the BBC. “They were sent a note at that time that these three players would not be attending Buckingham Palace. So, someone’s just made something up.”
No stand-off. No last-minute refusal. Just a selection cull that had administrative consequences.
Hesson stressed that the group who did meet King Charles III at Clarence House were those still officially on tour, and that the invitations had gone out long before the controversy erupted.
“In terms of the other players, all of the rest of the players that were in the squad were already on the list. I was already on the list as the white-ball head coach, so there have been no changes to it,” he said. “It was all very straightforward. Someone’s just got two and two together and come up with nine. For me, that’s unacceptable journalism.”
The anger in his words matched the turbulence of Pakistan’s tour.
The royal audience came against the backdrop of a series in crisis. England had already wrapped up the three-match contest, hammering Pakistan by an innings and 103 runs at Headingley and then by 194 runs at Lord’s to secure a 2–0 lead with a game to spare. The margins were heavy. The reaction from the Pakistan Cricket Board was heavier.
Seven players were sent home. Seven replacements were summoned. Sarfaraz Ahmed, installed as Test head coach before the tour, was removed and Hesson, already in charge of the white-ball side, was handed the red-ball reins as well.
Among those told to pack their bags were senior opener Imam-ul-Haq and Salman Ali Agha, who had captained Pakistan in the first Test at Headingley when Babar Azam was injured. From leading the side at the start of the series to being ushered out of it before the end, Salman’s role flipped in a matter of days.
That upheaval created fertile ground for speculation. A dropped senior player, a royal visit, a politically sensitive backdrop in London – the ingredients for a headline were all there. Hesson’s frustration lay in what he saw as a leap from circumstance to fiction.
“Look, I know there’s been a void in the news, but people are just making up stories,” he said, underlining that the squad’s trimmed list for Clarence House matched the cricketing decisions, not any off-field protest.
For Pakistan, the story now shifts back to the pitch and the salvage job ahead. A team shaken by heavy defeats, sweeping changes and now an off-field storm around its discarded captain has to find a way to steady itself before the final Test exposes even more cracks.
