Faheem Ashraf

With nippy seam bowling and counterattacking lower-order batting, Ashraf brings a lot of value to the Pakistan side. So it was puzzling why he was dropped from the Test team not long after he top-scored with 83 from No. 8 on debut, against Ireland in 2018. On his return he brought solidity to a fragile lower-middle order, saving the follow-on against New Zealand with 91 in the Boxing Day Test in 2020 and contributing two half-centuries against South Africa at home a month later.

A canny line-and-length bowler with an accurate yorker, Ashraf made headlines in his first year of international cricket when he took Pakistan's first T20I hat-trick, in a narrow win over Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi in 2017. Five months later, in his first PSL season, he took Islamabad United to the title with 18 wickets at 17.2. Shortly after that, Ashraf got his first ODI five-for, razing Zimbabwe for 67 in Bulawayo. In 2019, he took United to the PSL playoffs with a terrific 6 for 19 against Lahore Qalandars in his tournament haul of 21 wickets. Even so, he was left out of Pakistan's 50-over World Cup squad.

He was back in all three international formats by the end of 2020, and took 3 for 17 to seal a T20I series win in South Africa in 2021, but the red-ball opportunities more or less dried up after Pakistan were whitewashed at home by England in 2022.

Ashraf had a more uninterrupted run in white-ball cricket from 2025 onwards, playing in the T20 Asia Cup and the 2026 T20 World Cup.

Having won a second PSL title with Islamabad in 2024, he moved to Quetta Gladiators, but returned to his original side in 2026 when he was bought for over US$303,000 in the league's first auction.