In 2019, the Quetta Gladiators became the third team to win the PSL title, with their emerging fast bowler Mohammad Hasnain leading the charge. Hasnain not only played a pivotal role in the final but also earned the Player of the Match award. That same year, he made his debut for Pakistan against Australia in Sharjah.
However, international cricket is a different ball game altogether. In the high-scoring series against Australia and then England, Hasnain struggled, relying mostly on raw pace without much refinement.
The bigger issue is that all of this happened six years ago, and since then, there has been only a negligible improvement in his skill set. But who is to blame for this stagnation? The player himself, or the system he is part of?
A year into Hasnain’s career, the pandemic struck, affecting cricket just as it did every other sport and industry. Tours became fewer, but squad sizes increased.
Hasnain travelled to England with the team for a T20I series, but the first match was washed out, effectively turning it into a two-match series. With six fast bowlers in the squad, he didn’t get a game.
Later, in October 2020, Hasnain was included in the home series against Zimbabwe. He finally got a chance to play an ODI, his first since May 2019, in the last game of the series, and he made the most of it by taking a five-wicket haul.
Impressed by that performance, the management played him in the T20I series, but Hasnain managed only two wickets across three matches.
This pattern continued on the New Zealand tour, where he played only the last T20I, finishing wicketless but bowling economically. His economy rate was 1.40 runs per over lower than the innings run rate.
Things got worse for Hasnain. He was selected for the home T20I series against South Africa in 2021 but didn’t play a match, as the squad already had four regular pacers and three all-rounders.
This trend persisted for years. Hasnain would either be left out of squads or, if selected, would play only sporadically, often just two out of three matches.
| Most Matches played by a Pakistani Fast Bowler since 2019 | ||||
| In a single year during this period | ||||
| Name | Matches | Wickets | Most Matches | Year |
| Shaheen Afridi | 159 | 313 | 36 | 2021 |
| Haris Rauf | 134 | 207 | 31 | 2022 |
| Naseem Shah | 78 | 135 | 24 | 2022 |
| Hasan Ali | 65 | 104 | 30 | 2021 |
| Faheem Ashraf | 60 | 45 | 24 | 2021 |
| Mohammad Wasim | 53 | 74 | 26 | 2022 |
| Mohammad Hasnain | 43 | 42 | 10 | 2021 |
| Mohammad Amir | 38 | 50 | 24 | 2019 |
Since 2019, Mohammad Hasnain has played the seventh-most matches among Pakistani pacers. This might not have been a problem if those 43 matches had come in a shorter span. Instead, his international appearances have been scattered, with his busiest year being 2021, when he played just 10 matches.
He is the only bowler whose highest match tally in a single year during this period is less than 20. For context, Mohammad Amir didn’t play a single international match from 2021 until the 2024 T20 World Cup, yet he has only five fewer matches than Hasnain.
As mentioned earlier, Hasnain was picked primarily for his performances in PSL 2019. He was the first of a new wave of emerging Pakistani pacers in the middle-overs enforcer role, a trend later followed by Shahnawaz Dahani and Ihsanullah, who also dominated the PSL.
However, all three share another trait besides their pace and bowling style: none have reached the heights their potential promised. The reason lies in the nature of their role.
During Hasnain’s peak PSL years in 2019 and 2020, his success, along with Dahani and Ihsanullah’s later on, was built largely on the use of short balls. In those two years, Hasnain bowled the second-most short balls (23), just behind Wahab Riaz (26).
Their success was partly due to how Pakistani batters struggled against short balls. From 2019 to 2024, local batters averaged 25.7 with a strike rate of 189.7, while overseas batters averaged 30.9 with a strike rate of 206.7. These bowlers mostly troubled local batters and enjoyed success for a while.
However, while Dahani and Ihsanullah were sidelined by injuries, Hasnain continued playing. The problem was that this approach worked against local batters but not at the international level against overseas players.
It could be argued that Hasnain’s main shortcoming is his lack of improvement. He is a capable middle-overs enforcer, using shorter lengths at high pace. He showed some signs of progress when he played in The Hundred and the Big Bash, performing decently with the new ball in helpful conditions.
But such conditions are rare in white-ball cricket these days. Before he could further develop his skills for the international stage, his bowling action was suspended.
After returning with a remodelled action and training at a speed camp in England, Mohammad Hasnain impressed with his pace and regular wickets in the Champions One-Day Cup, though mostly in the middle overs.
Ex-cricketers often say that players need to play First-Class cricket to refine their skills. The issue is that Hasnain hasn’t played many First-Class matches, often being busy as part of travelling squads instead of participating in the domestic season.
His professional career began in T20s, where he remains a defensive new-ball bowler, economical in the powerplay and effective in the middle overs with the short ball. So, the question remains: Is this the skill set of a bowler who debuted six years ago?
In 50-over cricket, he hasn’t played enough to be judged thoroughly, but his strengths are similar, acting as an enforcer in the middle overs.
The lack of First-Class opportunities or proper work on his action and biomechanics can be blamed on the system. Yet, other bowlers from his era have managed to improve within the same system. So, who is at fault here? That remains a mystery.
About the Author: Zaid Babar Khan
Data geek, Cricket fanatic, Haris Rauf and Lahore Qalandars fan and an article writer
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