Sadaqat has played only five T20Is since his debut in the format at last month’s Asian Games, but his recent run of form has generated a considerable amount of excitement around his potential.
Pakistan have long wanted a top-order with more intent and aggression. Though the opening pair of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan – the most prolific in T20I history – offered consistency in terms of runs, their strike rates were hardly modern. And though Pakistan has tried with a younger crop of batters to reset their batting philosophy at the start of 2025, they have not really performed as expected.
Top-order runs play an outsized role in determining the outcome of T20s. But Pakistan have struggled to maximise the powerplay for a while, which has often translated into their struggles in the format overall.
Much of it can be attributed to their inherent risk-averse approach. But in Sadaqat, Pakistan may have discovered a true modern-day batter who rather than being shackled by the traditional approaches around batting seeks to maximise scoring opportunities whenever he walks out to bat.
He bats with the simple principle of punishing anything and everything in his range, something he picked up by observing Travis Head. “It doesn’t matter to him who is bowling” Sadaqat said of Head after his sparkling 51-ball 96 in the second T20I against Sri Lanka. “He hits on the first ball if the ball is in his zone, which I think is the best thing about him. He cashes on every ball in his zone. I have observed that his batting style stays the same across all three formats.”
Sticking to that philosophy has helped Sadaqat. He whipped Jayden Seales off the very first ball of the CPL final for a massive six behind square in Barbados and started his innings in the first T20I against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi in similar fashion, whipping the second ball he faced over the square-leg boundary.
The last month, in fact, has been a dream run, Sadaqat amassing 451 T20 runs at a strike rate of 194.39 in eight innings. That includes two hundreds for Jamaica Kingsmen in the CPL eliminator and final and two exhilarating half-centuries for Pakistan against in the first two T20Is against Sri Lanka.
It is a small sample size, but Sadaqat has demonstrated an ability to play the situation rather than approaching batting in one gear. Pakistan had contrasting starts in the first two T20Is. While their openers – Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman – scored rapidly in the first match, they struggled to get going in the second, playing 14 dots in the powerplay. Sadaqat entered in the seventh over and took nine balls before hitting his first boundary. But once in, he made up for lost time as his blistering 96 propelled Pakistan to 215-3, their highest total at home.
In a PCB video after the series-sealing win, Farhan reflected on how he was confident Pakistan would go beyond 200 because of the ability of the batters to come after. It was a glimpse into how central Sadaqat already is to Pakistan’s batting plans and the cushion his presence allows the openers.
He is also equally effective against pace and spin, which bodes well for a number three often required to help the batting side transition from the powerplay to middle overs. He averages 37.21 and scores at 10.39 an over against pace and his corresponding numbers against spin are 37.58 and 9.44 in all T20s.
That he can access all parts of the ground with a wide-array of shots further establishes his case. He did not only hit down the ground and over midwicket against Sri Lanka, but was comfortable carving the ball in front of and behind point, both off the front and back foot. During his 96 on Sunday, Sadaqat played a reverse paddle against Dasun Shanaka on one of the length balls outside the off stump to bisect the gap between the wicketkeeper and short third, before ramping Nuwan Thushara over short fine leg.
But the 21-year-old remains a work in progress. He looked out of sorts over the course of his three-ball duck in the final game on Tuesday, spooning a simple catch to mid-off when unsure to flick the yorker or hoick it down the ground.
Much of the focus for the next one year will be on the ODI format with next year’s 50-0ver World Cup, and Pakistan will look to brush up their combinations in the tri-series against Sri Lanka and England, which commences on Sunday. Sadaqat, who made his debut in the format in Bangladesh earlier this year and played in the last series against Australia, finds himself out of that squad.
Ahsan Iftikhar Nagi is a cricket journalist based in Lahore