Maaz Sadaqat wins Asia Cup 2025 player of the tournament award

In a span of just 11 months, Peshawar-born Maaz Sadaqat has compiled an admirable list of achievements and gained experience in different cricketing environments.

Pakistan Cricket Bang uploaded a feature on Maaz highlighting his achievements and insights into his career so far.

He won the man-of-the-match award on his HBL PSL debut, which included a 102-run stand with Babar Azam, finished runners-up with Peshawar in both the National T20 Cup and Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and faced South Africa’s full-strength attack in a warm-up match ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy in Karachi. In addition, he toured England and Australia with the Pakistan Shaheens, hit a century against the Adelaide Strikers in the Top End T20 in Darwin, scored his second top-class century for Peshawar, won the Hong Kong Super Sixes and recently won the player of the tournament award in Pakistan Shaheens’ successful ACC Men’s Asia Cup Rising Stars campaign in Doha.

Reflecting on a very busy but fruitful fifth year as a professional and first-time teenage cricketer, Maaz says, “It’s been a great year in terms of exposure, especially with three Shaheens tours, domestic cricket, Hong Kong Sixes and now the Nepal Premier League. I made brief stops at home in Peshawar from all those moments when I left my mother and came home. for such a short time, but she’s also very proud to see me doing well after everything we’ve been through as a family.”

Maaz has so far played 24 first-class matches, 20 List A matches and 25 T20s. His latest statement, and the one that brought him much acclaim, was 258 runs in five innings – the most in the Asia Cup Rising Stars 2025 – and 7-52 in 12 overs with the ball for Pakistan’s Sahin.

Reflecting on his amazing form in the tournament, he said: “Going into the Rising Stars tournament, I had enough faith in myself and promised myself that I would win it for my team. All the hard work I put in before this season paid off.”

Five of Maaz’s seven wickets in the contest came off top-order batters (Nos. 1 to 5) and he finished with a miserable average of 7.43 and an economy of 4.3. He says the spontaneous environment he experienced in the Hong Kong Sixes as a bowler stood him in good stead in the 20-over tournament.

“In the Hong Kong Sixes, even if you went for three sixes, it was considered a good finish and the boundaries were few. But just a few days later, when I was bowling in Doha, I felt almost no pressure because the moments felt less intense and I relaxed my bowling role, which helped our team.”

Maaz has batted on various surfaces and faced various bowling attacks during his stints with Peshawar Zalmi, Shaheens and Peshawar in domestic cricket across all formats and showcased his rich run-scoring form and a solid technique.

The challenge of switching between white ball and red ball doesn’t bother him too much as he believes, “In modern cricket, if you notice that the best bats almost at the same rate in all formats, so I tend to follow the same rule for myself and look to go wherever I bat.”

Meticulous preparation before every series or tournament has been the cornerstone of all the success he has achieved so far and his regional coach and former KP teammate Raffatullah Mohmand testifies, “Apart from being a quick learner and a skilled cricketer, Maaz’s success also lies in his thorough preparation for all the challenges he faces.

“From the time he shot in the regional and provincial teams of KP and Peshawar as a teenager, he started observing and talking to all the experienced players like Mohammad Rizwan, Iftikhar Ahmed and Sahibzada Farhan. He took leaves out of their books and applied it to his training and conditioning, which accelerated his progress.”

Raffatullah rated him highly from the early days and arranged a 2023 Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League contract for City Club, where he made his List A debut at Savar and scored 128 runs in six matches, including a fifty and took four wickets as an 18-year-old.

“I’ve played a few seasons there in Dhaka and a friend contacted me in 2023 that they needed an all-rounder, so I decided to recommend Maaz for that gig because he had impressed us all in Peshawar and he deserved maximum exposure,” recalled Rafatullah, who became Pakistan’s T20I cap #61 against England in 2020.

Talking about his journey, Maaz recalled that his elder brother – Haroon Sadaqat, who played 10 first-class games for FATA in 2016 and returned to the four-day game after nine years in the ongoing Quaid-e-Azam Trophy season for the same team – took him to the Ashnaghar Mashatric Cricket Club.

“I was a school kid and I was hitting big sixes in my first cricket match and everyone was impressed, after that my brother and family decided to let me appear in trials, which helped me become part of the stream of PCB paths.

“I played district cricket for Peshawar U19, then became the second run-scorer in the PCB U19 regional tournament for KP and was selected in Pakistan U19 for the 2021 U19 Asia Cup in Dubai and the 2022 ICC U19 World Cup in West Indies.”

Like many young batsmen in Pakistan, he envisioned himself batting with Pakistan’s latest 15,000 international run scorer Babar Azam and his dream finally came true when he was picked by Peshawar Zalmi in the HBL PSL X.

“During the pre-tournament practices, apart from training with him and learning different aspects of the game, I also told Babar how I always wanted to bat alongside him. It felt great to experience those moments as a young player.”

Maaz’s long wait to bat with Babar ended when Peshawar Zalmi gave him his HBL PSL debut and fell to 38-3 in 5.5 overs chasing 144 against Islamabad United at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore on May 2. The duo stayed in the middle for 62 balls in a game-changing century partnership where Maaz hit four fours and three sixes in his 33-ball 55.

“With Babar at the other end, I felt no pressure and turned to my natural game with more confidence. This time also helped me realize how much I have trained all my life to get here and do well. I felt much more motivated to show my skills and win the game for my team.”

The left-hander – who had amassed 646 runs in the 2024-25 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy at a strike rate of 71 including his long-awaited maiden maiden century – has been given the nod of selection for the Pakistan Shaheens’ tour of England from July 22 to August 6. “In England I learned a lot about how the conditions can be different when you go overseas. The ball was swinging and running a lot. It taught me a few things about my batting even though I couldn’t score big.”

The PCB’s efforts to maintain an active Pakistan Shaheens schedule with three overseas tours in five months this year has paid dividends in player development with a number of players, including Maaz, growing in confidence and skill. “I was a part of all three Shaheens tours after doing well in domestic cricket and that was an eye opener for me. The overseas tours immediately after the domestic shows helped us all find ways to face the challenges that international cricket presents. Domestic cricket is slightly easy when we come back from such tours.

Maaz hit 104 off 59 balls against the Adelaide Strikers at Darwin’s Marrara Cricket Ground in the Top End T20 on August 20 after being asked to open the bat for Pakistan’s Shaheens, having featured in the middle order and faced a handful of balls in the previous four games.

“Our team management decided to open with me at the mid-wicket and he repaid the trust with a century. I took full advantage of the pitch’s limitations by hitting shots in my zone and returned to the strike rotation coupled with a boundary almost every over. My appetite to build the innings grew when I failed to impress in England over three days and 50 matches.”

In the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy 2025-26 he featured in three matches where he made his presence felt against Abbottabad, making 114 off 140 balls hitting 11 fours and one six at a strike rate of 81. In alliance with Israrullah – another southpaw from Peshawar. as the duo put on 213 runs for the third wicket.

As Maaz continues to learn and develop with a better part of the 2025-26 domestic cricket season remaining, fans and pundits alike will expect more magnificent performances from the all-rounder. Maaz on the other hand will surely be looking to find more ways to overcome opposition as he grows in confidence, demand and value on the pitch and on the screens.