When Ahmed Shehzad came on to the scene, many believed that Pakistan had finally found a long-term opener in the Aamer Sohail-Saeed Anwar mould. Similar to Virat Kohli in his set-up, Shehzad, like Kohli, could play the off-stump ball into the leg side off quicker bowlers. He was Pakistan's first T20I century-maker, getting there off 58 balls against Bangladesh in the 2014 T20 World Cup. Later that year he mixed aggression and watchfulness to make a Test-best 176, against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi. He was also only the fourth Pakistan batter to make five ODI hundreds as an opener, taking only 43 innings to get there, where Sohail took 132 innings.

Though flashy in appearance and attitude, Shehzad's game was sober and he didn't rack up numbers the way Kohli did. He had attractive shots, but more often than not they went straight to the fielder. And then there were the behavioural issues. He was left out of the probables squad for the 2016 tour of England on disciplinary grounds, and coach Mickey Arthur called him and Umar Akmal a "disruption to the team". In 2014, Shehzad was reprimanded for getting into an on-field discussion involving religion with Tillakaratne Dilshan, and in 2018, he failed a drugs test, was banned and had the ban extended after it was found that he had played club cricket during his suspension.

Shehzad made a brief comeback to the T20I team in 2019 on the back of his PSL form, but couldn't hold on to his place in the XI.