Five balls, two ducks, two thumping losses is, it's safe to conclude, not the best way to begin an international career. The fastest T20I hundred by a Pakistani, seeing home the fastest 200-plus chase in a T20I in the third game, it is equally safe to conclude, is a pretty good way to get over those first two. Hasan Nawaz, welcome to Pakistan cricket and Pakistan cricket, welcome to Hasan Nawaz.
It has been some time coming, Nawaz long regarded as the next big thing by, among others, Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq. Those views were formed in the aftermath of his breakthrough in the Kashmir Premier League in 2022, where, playing alongside Malik for Mirpur Royals, he took on the likes of Mir Hamza, Sohail Tanvir, Mohammad Amir and Zaman Khan. He ended that season as the second-highest scorer and, more revealingly, with the second-most sixes hit.
It's taken him some time to break through into the Pakistan side, a combination of Pakistan's unbending faith in Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, as much as the injury which stalled Nawaz's career somewhat over 2023. But the timing of his rebound has been perfect. Just as Pakistan have finally had enough with RizBar - for now - Nawaz impacted with the Lions team at the new T20 Champions Cup in December, again as the second-highest scorer overall, and again, as the second-most prolific six-hitter.
And as an illustration of the new approach Pakistan are pushing under Salman Agha, the new T20I captain, Nawaz's hundred was pitch perfect. Unaffected by the two preceding ducks and in line with the consistent messaging, from captain, vice-captain Shadab Khan, right through to the team management and selectors: attack, without fear of failure or repercussion.
Not that there was no pressure when he went out on Friday.
"Definitely, when I got out in the first two games I did think [this was it], you know how Pakistan can be, that I'll go back to domestic cricket," Nawaz said after the game. "But the way Agha and Shadab backed me, saying they know about my skill, whenever you play, you'll win the game, so I had belief in that. Today, I just wanted to get that first single out of the way in international cricket. When that single came, all the pressure went away, and I just played my game."
That game was relentless attack, seven sixes in total, not very far from the ten in the entire New Zealand innings, and all around the ground. His favourite, he said, was the six straight down the ground off James Neesham, to bring up his fifty; Pakistani fans, desperate for 360-degree batters, will no doubt pick the nonchalant ramp off Ben Sears straight over the wicketkeeper's head in the 15th over.
As the chase neared its end, Agha tried to engineer a hundred for Nawaz. It wasn't, Nawaz said, in his plans. "Yeah, Agha did say he was trying to get me to my hundred, but I told him, 'no, forget that, just finish the match'. Finish it and if it is in my destiny to get a hundred, I'll get it."
It was precisely the kind of selfless approach this Pakistan want. "In our minds, it is just attack," Nawaz said. "The way other teams are playing cricket, that is the kind of cricket we want to play. Sure, we'll fail at the start, but in our minds we are sure we want to play fearless cricket."
It was impressive also because of the unfamiliarity of conditions he was faced with. "Pacers get a little extra bounce here, and we're used to low-bounce wickets at home. I've never played in conditions like this. So, it was quite different in the first two games for me. But then I batted a bit and sat down and chatted to the coach about what I was doing wrong. I took that with me to the crease today."
It was also some distance from his start in the game, inevitably through tape-ball cricket in Layyah, a small city in Southern Punjab. He is not the first Pakistan international from there - Munir Malik played three Tests for Pakistan in the 1960s as a medium-pacer. He said in a PCB interview that he used to pay the other boys some of his pocket money to bowl at him.
But it was a move to the capital Islamabad that brought him onto national pathways. Nawaz went on the pretext of studying, staying with his sister, but soon started excelling at club level. It eventually led him into the Kashmir Premier League and then the PSL, via those hardened backers of top-order bashers, Islamabad United. He didn't make an impact in limited opportunities, and an injury thereafter stalled his progress.
But he returned this year with a maiden first-class hundred and then that impressive T20 Champions Cup, validation of the high esteem in which he is held by observers. All of it meant he was the hottest pick at this season's PSL draft, snapped up by Quetta Gladiators.
With Saim Ayub soon to return, as well as Fakhar Zaman, Nawaz's impact - with the considerable caveat of continued management backing of this approach - Pakistan are as well-placed as they can hope to be for finally moving into the modern era of T20 batting.