Tall and well-built in the tradition of Punjabi fast bowlers, Rauf comes with the Rashid Latif seal of approval and joined the national squads for the series against South Africa and Bangladesh in 2002-03. He is capable of generating a fair amount of pace with a natural action that brings the ball back into the right-hander, but it is his ability to extract awkward bounce that has been the key to his successes and development so far. He toured India with the Pakistan A team in December 2003, and although, like his teammates, he had a generally poor series, he bowled a couple of hostile spells. Consistent performances in the domestic circuit handed him a call-up to the Pakistan one-day side for the fifth ODI against Zimbabwe in Sheikhupura in January 2008. In his third match, against Bangladesh, he picked up his first Man-of-the-Match award.