Hasan Nawaz brings the muscle to Pakistan's middle

There's something slightly ersatz about players feted solely for their ability to score big at the top of a T20 batting order. The ball is at its hardest. There are open spaces on the boundary. There's often no situation-induced pressure, and ample license from the management to go for it. It's early enough that a first-over dismissal will be too far removed from memory of most viewers to be scapegoated as a match-influencing error.

Boasting about big runs at furious strike rates at that stage is a bit like bragging about not being frightened of walking alone at night when you live in a city like Reykjavik. Every possible condition to produce a desirable outcome has been catered for; it's no surprise there is a surfeit of players eager to move up the order to give themselves the best chance of success.

For a while over the past few months, Hasan Nawaz appeared to be exactly that sort of player. In a team beginning to shake off the Babar Azam-Mohammad Rizwan approach to batting for something more volatile, Pakistan gambled on Nawaz, plumping for him in five T20Is in New Zealand earlier this year on what, in retrospect, looks surprisingly scant evidence of his record in domestic cricket. Nawaz later said he had "never played in conditions like [these]."

Aqib Javed was still interim coach of the Pakistan side in March, having been in the role nearly as long as his full-time predecessor Gary Kirsten, and actually overseen more games. Some might argue that punting on Nawaz was a stroke of inspiration. But, in truth, Javed has a penchant for tinkering based on little more than hunches. Weeks earlier, he had promoted Babar to open the batting in the Champions Trophy, a role he had performed only on two occasions a decade ago, and one which bore no fruit.

Nawaz's elevation into the side and up to the top also backfired disastrously; four of his five innings in New Zealand combined to produce a total of one run. In fact, five of his first ten T20I innings were ducks, the most for a player of a Full Member nation. The belief that Nawaz would succeed in New Zealand was rooted solely in the T20 Champions Cup in 2024-25, where he finished as the second highest run-scorer with a strike rate over 142. But as far as more substantial evidence went, there was none: Nawaz's previous cricket of any pedigree had come a full 13 months before that.

Fortunately for him and Pakistan, in the middle of those four low scores in New Zealand, Nawaz produced an astonishing counter-attacking knock - an unbeaten 105 off 45 balls that helped Pakistan win their only game of the tour, chasing down 205 at Eden Park with four overs to spare.

Like good films that seed the final reveal early, there were signs of the kind of player Nawaz could become. They lay not in the powerplay, where he appeared as scratchy as he did in the other four innings that series and was fortunate not to nick off more than once early on. Post-powerplay, though, as the field spread out, Nawaz went on a tear, pummelling 77 runs off 28 balls, punishing both pace and spin to rip the game out of New Zealand's hands.

Both his PSL franchise Quetta Gladiators and latterly Pakistan took time to work out how to use him, but now having cracked that code, his results down the order have been spectacular. During Gladiators' run to the final of PSL 2025, Nawaz's strike rate after the powerplay was behind only Kusal Perera and Sikandar Raza's for any Gladiators batter to have faced a minimum of 80 balls. But more remarkable was Nawaz's reliability despite his high-risk game in the tournament. He faced more non-powerplay deliveries than any other batter in the league, and averaged a staggering 121.66 while striking at 166.66.

Nawaz's powerplay numbers are well below average: he strikes at just over a run a ball in the first six overs, ranking 190th of 232 batters who have faced at least 60 balls in the powerplay this year. Despite that handicap, only Abhishek Sharma, Dewald Brevis and Tim Seifert have superior T20I strike rates this year among players with 300 T20I runs. Nawaz's ranking among those elite batters is due to his big hitting when others typically slow down, striking at over 174 outside the powerplay. It is a number exceeded only by Brevis and Tim David among players from Full Member nations.

That potential to go big lower down is invaluable for Pakistan. They may have stocked their lower-middle order with batting potential to have more depth, but true explosiveness is hard to find outside the top order, especially during the horror run Mohammad Haris is enduring in the middle overs. Against less decorated bowling attacks, Salman Ali Agha and Mohammad Nawaz have made valuable contributions, but Hasan Nawaz's six-hitting ability when the squeeze is on remains unmatched.

It may be evident with the eye test, but raw numbers make for equally startling reading. Nearly 60% (34 of Nawaz's 57 T20I boundaries) are sixes, the highest among players from Full Member teams with at least 50 boundaries in T20Is. While that makes sense on some level - after all, a high strike rate when more fielders are on the boundary means you'll have to clear them rather than thread gaps - his ability to sustain that number across a widening sample size makes Nawaz's player profile an almost uniquely exciting one.

For context, Nawaz has already hit more sixes than Ahmed Shehzad or Kamran Akmal managed in their entire Pakistan careers, just two behind Saim Ayub, three short of Asif Ali, and four behind Shadab Khan. And though Nawaz favours pace on, those sixes have been split equally between spinners and seam bowlers at 17 apiece.

There are, invariably, caveats to each spring of optimism. Nawaz is a 23-year old precocious talent in the hands of a nation with a supremely efficient history of turning such players into a 27-year-old domestic cricketing journeyman. That hundred at Eden Park came at one of the smaller grounds in world cricket. PSL form hasn't always been a reliable indicator of prolonged success at international level. Pakistan haven't necessarily played against the highest class of opposition - certainly nowhere close to what they will encounter against India in the Asia Cup on Sunday. And in the three games against Afghanistan, who boast among the world's best spin attacks - Nawaz's one clear weakness - he was subdued: 33 runs in three innings at a run a ball, with Noor Ahmad and Rashid Khan dismissing him once each.

Pakistan cricket will always give you reasons to curb your enthusiasm. But in a cricket board and a nation that has, of late, come to question the authenticity of everything that happens around them, there is nothing ersatz about Hasan Nawaz.

And that, on its own, is perhaps getting worth excited about.