Is Naseem Shah a star in the making or a flash in the pan?

All our lives we've heard from experts, commentators, pundits, game legends and anyone who can talk even a bit of cricket that 'there is no shortage of talent in Pakistan'.

This land is supposedly a hotbed where raw but precocious talent is mass produced at an annual basis - and at a production rate higher than we can handle. The assembly line has been working overtime the last few years, with its newest offering being Naseem Shah.

Shah joins Mohammad Hasnain, Musa Khan and Shaheen Afridi but unlike two from this quartet, he has not looked out of place at international level and seems ready to hang with the best.

So a teenage pacer with a wise-beyond-years approach to the game is playing and picking up wickets for Pakistan. Where have we heard this before?

The similarities are there for all to see. Like in the late 2000s, when Mohammad Amir burst onto the scene, Pakistan once again has a serious fast bowling talent whose ceiling is as high as anyone's ever been.

But the two are as different as they are same. Shah bowls with his right arm, Amir was a southpaw; Shah is powerfully built, Amir was slender; Shah's strength at this stage - apart from his decent pace - is his ability to hit the right areas (which Musa and Hasnain can't). He can't make the ball dance yet, Amir could.

The sum totals of their respective styles would not be far off from each other's though. Where Amir was in 2010, Shah stands almost a decade later, with the world at his feet. Someone discovered in the 20s doesn't stand a realistic chance to aim for the highest echelons of fast bowling but Shah, at the age of 16, can do whatever he wants to and go wherever his talents take him.

Which takes us back to the...