Hassan Nawaz, Pakistan's first T20 purist since Shahid Afridi, is the face of their changing philosophy

Only 21 men have done both of the following in T20I cricket for a Full Member nation: score over 400 runs, and maintain a strike rate of 150 or more. Two of these 21 have done it for Pakistan – Shahid Afridi, and the club’s newest entrant, Hassan Nawaz.

In 2025, writer Osman Samiuddin called Afridi the “T20 cricketer before T20s were a thing,” a tribute to his overall ability in limited-overs (including, of course, his high-quality leg spin). It is hard to refute, particularly when images of his 37-ball century (in the year 1996!) are splattered across the mind.

Some may argue that Afridi is Pakistan’s only truly great T20 batter. That is debatable, but two things are undisputed; he was the first, and he was ahead of his time. Indeed, during the span of Afridi’s T20I career for Pakistan, only Glenn Maxwell, Darren Sammy and Aaron Finch managed over 500 runs while striking at 150 or better. Afridi was the only one of the four to score over 1,000 runs.

Among the 88 players with over 500 T20I runs during Afridi’s career, only six players hit sixes more often than his rate of one every 12.8 balls. Shane Watson and Chris Gayle were the only two to hit more of them in total and more frequently than Afridi.

All this, before bringing up his starring role in Pakistan’s T20 World Cup triumph in 2009. The picture this paints is that of a man with his hand firmly on the pulse of short-form cricket, perhaps before the sport itself knew its heart was beating.

Fast-forward a decade or so, and the situation is squarely flipped on its head. T20 is the predominant form of cricket, and is the ICC’s preferred vehicle to spread the sport. Franchise models, of course, are more drawn to cricket’s three-hour version than the five-day one.

And yet, Pakistan’s T20 team has remained stagnant. Without even diving into the administrative maze that is the PCB, the fact remains that since Afridi, the team has not had a truly forward-thinking batter in this format.

Much of this has – somewhat disproportionately – fallen on the shoulders of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, the poster boys for what is now an unfashionable (and indeed, in some quarters, downright wrong) way to approach T20 cricket.

Read more: Beyond Rizbar: Whisper it, but Pakistan's T20I side is starting to make sense

Hassan Nawaz is Pakistan's first true T20 purist since Shahid Afridi

The pair’s ouster from the setup ahead of the Asia Cup does seem to have given Pakistan a fillip, but this has coincided with the emergence of perhaps the country’s first genuine T20 superstar since Afridi in the form of Nawaz.

This March, Nawaz had the most extraordinary start to his Pakistan career – scores of 0, 0, 105*, 1, 0 – in New Zealand. Apart from tickling the fancy of every statistician, it was a run that spoke to his approach to the shortest format.

Three of his four dismissals came off attacking shots, all within the first five balls of his innings. During his hundred, coming off two ducks in his first two internationals, he backed away off his fourth ball and slapped Ben Sears through cover for his first boundary.

To the cricketing purist, Nawaz is perhaps little more than a bull in a china shop. Markers of top-class batters – the high elbow, foot to the pitch of the ball – are sacrificed at the altar of unabashed attacking intent. Nawaz’s bat comes from straight and high, his front leg clears out of the way to make for a whip-like swing and his supple wrists often break to change direction, and add oomph to his aerial strikes.

At the end of that New Zealand series, Abhishek Mukherjee outlined why Nawaz had to be persisted with. He has since been backed to the hilt by new coach Mike Hesson, who moved him to the middle-order in May – the emergence of Sahibzada Farhan at the top, and protecting him from any early movement the apparent motivations for that move.

What that would do is reduce Nawaz’s batting in the Powerplay, but that is irrelevant to Pakistan, again for two reasons; one, they do have other batters who can score quickly with the field up and two, Nawaz is unconcerned about the fielders. He sees only the boundary.

Nawaz's start to T20Is is up there with the best in the world

In 18 innings in T20I cricket, Nawaz has struck 33 sixes, to go with 22 fours. Among Full member players with at least 400 runs, his six-to-four ratio of 1.5 is the highest. There is still time for this to change, and it is likely to drop, but the early indications are of someone who sees the maximum as his primary scoring option; as a mindset, this is invaluable when the available deliveries are so limited.

Among the same set of batters, Nawaz ranks fourth behind Abhishek Sharma, Tim David and Suryakumar Yadav for strike rate (166.8), and third behind Abhishek and Andre Russell for balls per six (7.58).

To say the least, Nawaz has elite company. To say a bit more, he profiles remarkably similarly to Afridi, albeit in a different era.

Two others from Pakistan – Asif Ali and Faheem Ashraf – hit sixes more regularly than Afridi did. But also part of their games was an inability to score between sixes that dragged their strike rates down to the mid-130s, rather than the 151 of Afridi or 167 of Nawaz.

Also read: Eight bowling options, no room for Fakhar: Pakistan's predicted XI for the Asia Cup

Where Nawaz manages to set himself apart is the volume of runs. Pakistan’s top five T20I batters for balls per six in the above sample in order are Nawaz, Asif, Faheem, Afridi and Mohammed Haris.

Of the other four, Afridi’s 18.01 is the highest average. Nawaz currently scores 26.06 runs per dismissal; not earth-shattering by any means, but a combination of speed and volume that Pakistan have never had before. Asif and Haris did seem to 'get' T20 cricket in the same way as Nawaz and Afridi, but neither could really make it count for much (there is still time for Haris, of course).

The argument can be made that much of Nawaz’s seeming prowess is down to a limited sample size. After all, he has only played 18 T20Is – Afridi played 98 across ten years for Pakistan. But put Nawaz’s start to T20Is up against some of the best in the world, never mind Pakistan, and he comes out looking extremely solid.

Only five other Full Member batters have scored as many runs, and struck upwards of 160 for this long, at the start of their careers: India finisher Rinku Singh, New Zealand T20 specialist Finn Allen, a genuine great in Suryakumar Yadav, and two potential all-format superstars in Cameron Green and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

It must also be said that Nawaz did not start this way in domestic T20 cricket. After the same mark of 18 innings, a time period from August 2022 to December 2024, Nawaz had a strike rate under 130, and barely hit one six per game.

That was the start of his turnaround in the format; a Champions Cup campaign that yielded 312 runs at a strike rate of 142 led to his call-up for the New Zealand series. In the 2025 PSL, he slammed 399 runs, averaging 57 and striking at 162.

Not only is Nawaz’s approach to the game possibly the ideal one, but crucially, it is precisely what he was rewarded for. This is an important clarification to make, since more conservative cricketing attitudes in the past have seen players rewarded for simply scoring a large volume of runs, which on its own is not always optimal in T20 cricket.

The opposition Nawaz has faced so far at the international level have not been of the greatest quality. He will run into at least one high-class outfit in the form of India at the Asia Cup, which could raise more skepticism if he does poorly.

But make no mistake: India will be in for a rude shock if they take Pakistan and Nawaz lightly. There is only one way he will bat.

Image credit: X / Pakistan Cricket

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