Michael Smith is the South African coach the PCB has handed a two-year contract to lead Pakistan’s batting across both red-ball and white-ball cricket. The appointment, confirmed in Lahore, ends interim batting coach Asad Shafiq’s stint, who returns to his post as a national selector. Smith spent a decade playing domestic cricket in South Africa without ever winning an international cap, then built a coaching resume across three continents, from PSL franchises to Cricket Tasmania. His first assignment starts immediately, a three-Test series in England beginning August 19.
Michael Smith Pakistan Batting Coach England Series
The PCB confirmed the appointment on August 4 in Lahore, with a two-year deal covering both formats. Smith replaces Shafiq, who had held the interim role since April and now reverts to his job as a national selector. The board had been searching for a permanent batting coach since May, running a public advertisement process that reportedly drew interest from several candidates before it settled on Smith’s mix of playing pedigree and coaching qualifications. He joins a coaching lineage that includes Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf and Andrew Puttick in recent years, though none of them arrived with quite Smith’s breadth of franchise experience across different countries.
The timing matters too, this appointment lands two weeks before a three-Test tour of England, giving Smith almost no runway before his first real test in the job.
Smith’s Playing Career And Credentials
Smith is 46, South African, and never played international cricket despite a long domestic career between 2003 and 2013. He played 89 first-class matches, 72 List A games and 16 T20s, scoring 7,029 runs in total as a right-hander, with nine centuries and 40 half-centuries showing he could bat long as well as often. His coaching badge sits at Level 4, the highest qualification available, and it underwrites everything that follows, since technical roles at this level increasingly demand the paperwork to match the resume.
In the PSL he has worked with Islamabad United, Karachi Kings and, most recently, Multan Sultans as assistant coach through the 2026 season. In Australia he coached batting for the Hobart Hurricanes and Cricket Tasmania, and in South Africa he consulted for both KZN Inland and Eastern Province, a footprint that stretches well beyond any one board.
Pakistan’s Full Coaching Staff
Smith slots into a staff the PCB confirmed ahead of the Bangladesh series in April and has now updated with his arrival. Sarfaraz Ahmed leads as head coach, appointed that same month, while Umar Gul continues as bowling coach and Abdul Saad as fielding coach. Cliffe Deacon remains physiotherapist, Grant Luden covers strength and conditioning, Usman Hashmi works as analyst, and Naveed Akram Cheema is team manager.
Smith is the only new face in a group that otherwise carried over from the earlier assignment, which suggests the board wanted continuity everywhere except the one area it had left unresolved for months. Keeping the rest of the unit intact also reduces the adjustment period Smith needs before the England tour. Backroom continuity has not always been a given for Pakistan cricket, so retaining seven of eight roles from April counts as a deliberate choice rather than an accident.
England Series Schedule And Squad
The series runs across three venues, Headingley from August 19, Lord’s from August 27, and Edgbaston from September 9, all part of the 2025-27 World Test Championship cycle, where Pakistan currently sit ninth. Babar Azam returns as Test captain in place of Shan Masood, leading a 17-man squad. Four uncapped players make the group, Ali Usman, Muhammad Awais Zafar, Ubaid Shah and Muhammad Ghazi Ghori, while Shaheen Shah Afridi has been dropped from both this tour and the earlier West Indies leg.
Abdullah Fazal was ruled out through injury and replaced by Abdullah Shafique, with Saud Shakeel added as further cover pending his own fitness, updates that apply across both the West Indies and England legs of the tour. Pakistan’s ninth-placed standing means every session in this series carries direct weight for the next World Test Championship cycle, adding pressure to a batting unit still finding its identity. Whatever happens on the field, the entire Michael Smith Pakistan batting coach England series project will be judged on how this batting unit handles a moving Dukes ball in early autumn conditions.