India, Dec. 29 -- The selectors at the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) took a bold call by dropping several star players, including Babar Azam and Shaheen Afridi, for the upcoming T20I series against Sri Lanka, which will be their final assignment before the start of the 2026 T20 World Cup.

With Pakistan scheduled to play all their World Cup matches in Sri Lanka, the three-match series against the Islanders was expected to serve as an ideal warm-up for the ICC tournament, a title Pakistan have failed to reclaim since their maiden triumph in 2009. The T20Is will be played from January 7 to January 11, exactly a month before Pakistan open their World Cup campaign against the Netherlands on February 10.

PCB opted to leave out several high-pro...