Four years into his Pakistan career, Abdullah Shafique, touted as a future star, should have been dominating international cricket by now. Instead, he finds himself out of the first XI in each format. Naman Agarwal analyses what went wrong, and what comes next for the talented Pakistani batter.
Pakistan have only ever successfully chased a 300-plus total once in World Cups, against Sri Lanka in Hyderabad. Aged 23 and playing just his fifth ODI, Abdullah Shafique led that chase with a hundred that officially marked him out as a potential all-format superstar. He had already made four in Test cricket by then, averaging 50 from 14 games.
With the world at his feet, Shafique had the perfect platform to become Pakistan’s next big thing. But as is often the case with Pakistan’s next big things, his career lost its way.
The Hyderabad ton did turn out to be an inflection point in his career, just not the kind he would have liked. Since that knock, Shafique averages 24.15 in international cricket, having scored just one more hundred in 35 attempts.
Where did it all go wrong?
The World Cup in India, where Shafique scored 336 runs at 42, was followed by an Australian Test tour. Pakistan bet highly on Shafique’s compactness at the top of the order. He had already enjoyed a fruitful series against Australia at home, smashing 397 runs at 79.40 back in early 2022. He started well Down Under as well, getting starts in the first innings of the first two matches, but couldn’t go beyond 62. On the field, however, Shafique was dropping catches left, right, and centre.
Entering the series, Pakistan had lost each of their last 14 Tests in Australia. It’s the sort of record that scars you into believing that survival is victory even before you start. And when things start unraveling on the field in a foreign land, they unravel real fast. In the third Test, Shafique bagged a pair. A series that had started off with a promising 42 off 121 balls in Perth, ended with 110 runs at 18.33.
If the Test tour had shaken Shafique’s standing, the rest of 2024 saw him slide further down a slippery slope.
In 2020, Shafique had made a dazzling start to his T20 career with a hundred on debut that earned him a national call-up in the shortest format before Tests or ODIs. But he did not come close to making the squad for any of the 15 T20Is or the T20 World Cup that Pakistan played after the Australia tour in 2024. In fact, he even struggled to hold his place in the XI for his PSL side Lahore Qalandars. Following scores of 28 (22) and 11 (10) from No.4 in the first two matches, he was pushed down to No.6 for the third match before being benched for the next five games.
In one of those matches, he came on as a sub fielder, took a diving catch at slip and made a silencing gesture that did not go down well in Pakistan cricket circles. Wasim Akram was quick to remind him about the “36 catches he had dropped in Australia”and that he should “focus more on cricket than on drama”.
While Wasim’s words were nowhere near as bad as it can get in this part of the world, they were an unfortunate reflection of Shafique’s downfall.
He did respond with back-to-back 50s upon comeback in the last two matches of PSL 2024, but it didn’t lead to the promised resurgence. Instead, his form and fortune nosedived in the home Test season. He failed to cross 15 in seven of his ten innings against Bangladesh and England. Even his hundred (102) in the first innings of the England series in Multan felt underwhelming on a pitch where two other hundreds, one double hundred, and one triple hundred were scored.
The ODI season that followed had a similar script. One fifty each against Australia and Zimbabwe, before a world-record stretch of three ducks in South Africa that culminated in him being dropped from the Test XI as Shan Masood moved himself up the order to take his place. Shafique neither featured in the home Test series against West Indies that followed, nor in the ODIs before and during the Champions Trophy.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Shafique had fallen so far down the pecking order in a matter of months that he wasn’t recalled to the Pakistan side for the Champions Trophy despite injuries to both Saim Ayub and Fakhar Zaman. He finally returned for the ODIs in New Zealand before the PSL and made 36, 1, and 33.
However, he is aware of how selections work and knows it won’t be enough to keep Ayub and Fakhar out of the ODI XI when they are available. “When I was out of the team for two years, I averaged over 60 in List A cricket, but Imam [ul-Haq-] and Fakhar [Zaman] were consistently performing. I didn't complain that I wasn't being selected, because I understood the level of competition was high. If the coach was backing the players, they were doing the right thing,” he had said following his ton in the Multan run-fest against England.
Currently, it feels like Shafique is at a stage where he doesn’t quite know what his best format is. Technique-wise, he has the game to succeed across the world in Test cricket, but averages 26.55 in the format since 2023. In ODIs, his strike rate of 79 is the second-lowest among Full Member openers in this timeframe, while he hasn’t been able to replicate his initial T20 success in the international arena.
At 25, however, time is in Shafique’s favour.
He has started well in the PSL, making a counter-attacking 66 off 38 balls in the first game when his team were bowled out for 139, and a quickfire 37 off 21 in a high-scoring second game. Shafique’s last five PSL outings have now fetched him 223 runs at 55.75, striking at 153.
Pakistan’s next set of international fixtures are three and a half months away. In Pakistan time, that’s long enough for entire leadership regimes to undergo multiple changes, let alone pecking orders among batters. What Shafique makes of the slight bit of momentum he has gathered in the last month with his international return and a good start to the PSL will determine how soon he can force his way back as the first-choice opener across Tests and ODIs, and potentially break through into the T20I team again.
Luckily for Shafique, his decline is largely on-field, and no external, off-field issues harrowing him (which isn't uncommon among Pakistan's young stars). It clears the way for him to return based on playing merit.
In an era of eccentric batting styles and uncommon scoring angles, Shafique’s compactness and elegance is a quiet throwback to olden times: his classic style would urge selectors to keep him in consideration. Given Pakistan cricket's own turbulent nature, and coupled with Shafique's gentle revival, it won't be surprising if the doors to his return open soon.
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