Azan Awais is Pakistan’s newest Test opener and already one of the most compelling stories in Pakistan cricket in 2026. Born on 10 October 2004 in Sialkot, the same city that gave Pakistan Sarfaraz Ahmed and Shaheen Afridi, he is a left-handed opening batter who plays with a patience and appetite for big scores that belongs to someone twice his age.
It was his mother who first noticed he had a gift. She spotted him watching cricket and playing tape-ball as a child and pushed him toward proper coaching in Sialkot at an age when most children in Pakistan are still deciding what sport they enjoy. That early push set the foundation for everything that followed.
His first-class career began in October 2024 with Sialkot in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, where he hit the ground running immediately. In just his third first-class match he scored 130 and put on a 312-run opening stand with Ashir Mehmood against Dera Murad Jamali. He then scored 203 not out, 168 and 121 in three successive innings, including the 203 not out where he batted throughout an entire Sialkot innings of 410 all out.
By the time Pakistan’s selectors sat down to pick a Test squad for the Bangladesh tour in April 2026, Awais had scored more first-class hundreds and more runs than any other player in Pakistan domestic cricket since the 2024-25 season started. In August 2025 he toured England with Pakistan Shaheens and topped the run-scoring charts with 276 runs in seven innings. The case for his selection was unanswerable.
He received Test cap number 261 on 8 May 2026 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur. Chasing Bangladesh’s first-innings total of 413, Pakistan’s openers walked out with the match already demanding. Early in his innings, Bangladesh speedster Nahid Rana landed a short ball that struck Azan on the helmet and left a shiner. Many 21-year-olds would have played defensively after that moment. He rocked back and hooked the very next short ball to the boundary.
He continued to pick up Rana’s short deliveries and dispatch them through the leg side until he had hit the bowler out of the attack. He resumed the third day on 85 not out and completed his century in the 51st over with a single off Rana, reaching 103 off 165 balls with 14 fours. He became the 14th Pakistani to score a century on Test debut, joining Javed Miandad, Younis Khan and Fawad Alam on an elite list, and only the third Pakistani to score a debut hundred in overseas conditions after Umar Akmal and Fawad Alam.
After his debut hundred he told the media directly: “I have played 33 first-class matches during the last two years. I worked extremely hard and scored heavily in domestic cricket which gave me the confidence to perform at the international level. Scoring a century on debut is never easy, especially in challenging conditions away from home. But this is just the beginning for me.” That composure under pressure is the thing that excites Pakistan cricket fans most. His age-group record backs it up.
At the 2023 U19 Asia Cup in December he scored 105 not out against India, anchoring an eight-wicket win and winning Player of the Match. At the 2024 U19 World Cup he equal-top-scored in the semi-final against Australia. This is a player who performs when the stage is biggest.
