‘Are you going home?’ King Charles jibe sums up England greats' mockery of Pakistan chaos and wild player clear-out

Pakistan cricket’s chaotic England tour has now become a source of disbelief and ridicule for some of the biggest names in English cricket, with Phil Tufnell, David Lloyd, Michael Vaughan and Alastair Cook tearing into the PCB’s extraordinary mid-series overhaul on the Stick to Cricket podcast.

Pakistan went 2-0 down after being beaten by an innings and 103 runs at Headingley and then by 194 runs at Lord’s. What followed was even more dramatic. Seven players were released from the squad before the third Test, while head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and bowling coach Umar Gul were also removed. The PCB has since opened an internal investigation into discipline and conduct on the tour. The scale and timing of the changes left the Stick to Cricket panel almost struggling to take the situation seriously.

‘It’s a disgrace’

Tufnell, who joked about having come close to being sent home himself during his England career, could not understand why Pakistan had taken the drastic step of removing players with the tour still going on. “But to send them home — to actually send them home — I think it’s terrible. It’s a disgrace for the players. I mean, they’ve now got to get on a plane and go back to the country,” Tufnell said. “I’ve had all sorts. I’ve been sent to the moon in a rocket by The Sun, and, you know, ‘big ears’ and ‘bunny teeth’ and everything. We always used to get that. But to actually say, two-thirds of the way through a tour, ‘Right, sorry lads, you’ve got to bugger off’ — I think that’s something else.”

Vaughan pointed out the particularly unusual aspect of the purge: players are sometimes expelled from tours for serious disciplinary offences, but Pakistan appeared to have started removing them after simply playing badly. “The thing is, usually you see one or two leave a tour because they’ve done something wrong in a bar or something. These have been sent home for just plain average cricket,” Vaughan said.

When the discussion turned towards Pakistan’s repeated coaching changes, Vaughan cited the extraordinary turnover before Cook immediately delivered the punchline. “Since Saqlain Mushtaq lost his job as head coach in 2023, Pakistan have made 12 changes to the men’s Test-match head coach,” Vaughan said during the podcast.

“That’s more than Watford managers,” Cook shot back. Cook also laughed at how quickly his own assessment of Pakistan’s tour had been rendered obsolete. “Did I say on this show, ‘There hasn’t been any chaos on this tour. They’ve just been bad’? And 24 hours later, they’ve sent seven home.”

Lloyd was even more scathing when the conversation moved towards Aaqib Javed and the Pakistan cricket hierarchy. Referring to the public spat involving former Pakistan coach Jason Gillespie, Lloyd said: “But this — I mean, he’s just a complete embarrassment to the country.”

Also Read: ‘Disrespectful to Pakistan and us’: Joe Root hits back at ‘no fight’ narrative ahead of third Test

‘Are you the one who’s going home?’

The most surreal part of the discussion came when the panel turned towards Pakistan’s interaction with King Charles during the tour. Members of the Pakistan contingent had been involved in a royal engagement amid the upheaval surrounding the squad.

The timing immediately became another source of amusement. “They got an audience with King Charles, didn’t they?” one of the panel remarked, before the conversation descended into laughter about players meeting the King while the PCB was simultaneously preparing to send members of the touring party home.

“They’re all lined up, and you’re being sent home.”

“But just before you go, can you just go and meet the King?”

Then came the imagined royal conversation that summed up how farcical the panel considered Pakistan’s week to have become.

“I bet old Charlie’s walked down there and said, ‘Are you the one who’s going home? What have you done wrong?’”

By that stage, even the panel appeared to recognise that Pakistan cricket had crossed from turmoil into something resembling satire.

“This is like that programme, Have I Got News for You.”

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