In September 2023, Abdullah Fazal played a major domestic tournament for the first time when he took part in the Hanif Mohammad Trophy. The left-hand batter was four months shy of his 21st birthday at the time - he hadn't broken into the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy or any other senior first-class cricket. By most metrics, that made him a late bloomer.
Except that he wasn't much of a bloomer, simply late.
That competition went about as disappointingly as it could for him. He managed 27 runs in four innings, and was pushed down at one stage to No. 5. When he returned to the top of the order in the second innings, he was gone for a golden duck. The opposition, first Hyderabad and then Abbottabad, was little more than modest; the three men who dismissed him were domestic journeymen Asim Ali, Jawad Ali and Adil Naz. He was dropped after the first two games, and did not feature in the tournament again.
It was here that Iqbal Imam, a former first-class cricketer who coaches the Karachi Blues red-ball side, first caught sight of Fazal. Despite that inauspicious first impression, Imam felt there was enough there to work with.
"He was reaching for balls away from his body," Imam tells Cricinfo. "But I saw power in his shots, and his basics were quite impressive."
But it was unlikely Fazal would break into the senior Karachi first team with those numbers, and so he set about trying to prove himself. While he was in line to be called up to the senior squad the following year, he insisted on playing the trial matches - on grounds of dubious quality - beforehand, which left a positive impression on Imam: "Those grounds are lower standard. It showed me he had a hunger for cricket."
Fazal impressed in those trial matches and, according to Imam, had built up momentum and "a sense of his game before he entered district level" ahead of the 2024-25 domestic season.
But the door to the first XI appeared shut, with Saim Ayub well ahead in the pecking order. However, fortune - and the cricket calendar - went his way in 2024. Pakistan had nine Tests scheduled between August 2024 and January the following year, and by this time, Ayub had been called up to the senior side.
"It gave him an opportunity, and he took the opportunity very well," Imam says. "Abdullah is mentally strong. When he came into the side, his luck was such that he was playing with Saud Shakeel as well as Shan Masood."
His main strength, in Imam's opinion, is that he is "a naturally attacking player whose defence is very solid". In four matches at the National T20 last year, Fazal scored 231 runs, getting dismissed just twice and striking at over 150.
In red-ball cricket, meanwhile, he saved his best till last, scoring 88 and 114 in the final of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy against a Sialkot attack that included Hasan Ali, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Hasnain and Usama Mir. He was Player of the Match, with Karachi Blues romping to the title.
Part of it, Imam thinks, comes down to a natural advantage, with Fazal falling into that relatively uncommon cohort of players who bat the opposite side to the hand they throw with. "He's a very top-hand-dominant player," Imam says. "He's tough, he's fit, and his power comes from his top hand. Because he throws right hand while batting left, this is an advantage for players. He's a great prospect if he continues to play like this. Like Garry Sobers, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Ijaz Ahmed, Chris Gayle, Saim Ayub, Brian Lara."
Those names are not, Imam hastens to clarify, players he is comparing Fazal with, but merely illustrating the ceiling for those that enjoy that natural advantage. Regardless, it was that kind of form which saw Fazal included on Pakistan's tour of Bangladesh. Though, at the time, he was unlikely to get off the bench.
However, in a recurring theme in his brief career, luck smiled down on him once more. Babar Azam pulled out of the first match with injury, which propelled Fazal to his Test debut. He showed a remarkable aptitude for sticking around in tough conditions against an accomplished Bangladesh attack, impressing especially with his use of the feet and an ability to play seam bowlers right underneath his eyes. He scored 60 and 66 in his debut Test, finishing the game as Pakistan's top-scorer.
For Imam, who has seen Fazal make giant strides over the past two years, none of this was a surprise. "Even great players can get out if they make a mistake, so I don't judge players only by the balls that dismiss them," he says. "I look at what a player does overall, and especially how he finishes his shot. Whether he middles the ball, and which part of the bat the ball connects with. Some players' stance is not great, some are too wide, others too narrow, but I look at impact on the ball, and what the body position is at that point. With him, the impact is good, and therefore, I don't fault his technique."
With Fazal included on Pakistan's tours to the West Indies and England, he has wasted little time consolidating his position as a first-team player. In a tour match this week against a West Indies Select XI, he scored 50 and 48 without being dismissed once. It also demonstrated his range; the first innings took 97 deliveries, the second was a run-a-ball effort which included three sixes.
Imam spoke to Fazal before he flew off to the West Indies with the Pakistan squad. He's bullish about Fazal's prospects, confident that the step-up to international cricket in distant lands is unlikely to faze him. Indeed, he believes, the superior facilities and conditions he will experience with the national side will help his growth.
"In West Indies, the bounce of the ball can sometimes be uneven. He'll have to watch his shot selection," Imam says. "But other than that, if he plays his natural game, I think he'll be fine there. In England, when you play the new ball, they'll look to make you drive and push at the ball. He must not do that.
"I've told him you can be aggressive and play a shot hard, but not to push the ball in England. He plays well on seaming pitches because his shot selection is very good. When he plays the full ball, he goes through his shot and finishes it. In England, players who nudge and push at the ball struggle. I'm confident that is not a mistake he will make. He understands batting. He doesn't let the bowler get on top of him without being rash."
For now, Fazal appears to be repaying the confidence of his coach, improving constantly from the player Imam first laid eyes on at the Hanif Mohammad Trophy not too long ago. The next two months will, without doubt, throw up the biggest challenge to that optimism. But if past patterns hold, Fazal's ever-improving technical ability may just see him emerge the other side further strengthening his position as a red-ball top-order man for the future. And there is, of course, that rub of the green that keeps falling his way.