Abdullah Shafique

Abdullah Shafique is a promising cricketer from Pakistan who at a very young age has played for the national team across all formats. He is an opening right-handed batter. Along with his father, who has also coached at the GEMS Modern Academy in Dubai since 2003, Abdullah began his training at the age of 3 and then moved to the Pakistan Under-19 team at the age of 16. In 2019, he made his first-class debut for Central Punjab in the 2019-20 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy scoring a magnificent century. The following year he made his T20 debut in the National T20 Cup and scored an unbeaten 102 that caught a lot of eyeballs. He became the first Pakistani batter to score hundreds on first-class and T20 debuts. In 2021, he played his first List A match but by then he was already a capped player for Pakistan.

Shafique made his T20I debut in 2020 against Zimbabwe scoring an unbeaten 41 in a successful chase. However, his biggest honor came the following year when he was handed over his first Test cap against Bangladesh. He notched up half-centuries in both the innings and since then, he has secured his place as an opener with consistent performances. Shafique smashed his first Test ton against mighty Australia in 2022 and ended the 3-match series with 397 runs. That year he also played his first ODI in the series against the Netherlands. Shafique continued his rich vein of form in red-ball cricket and scored a historic unbeaten 160 in the fourth innings against Sri Lanka to win the Test. He followed it up with another ton against England as well. In 2023, he made his ODI World Cup debut against Sri Lanka and marked the occasion by registering a fine century leading his side to victory and also breaking the record of the highest successful chase in a World Cup match. He scored a couple of more fifties and was one of the consistent players for the team. He had a lean patch in 2024 but recovered well scoring a ton against England in the 1st Test of the three-match series. He has also been part of the Lahore team in the Pakistan T20 League winning the title in the 2022 and 2023 seasons with him scoring a fantastic fifty in the 2023 final.