There cannot be two opinions about the fact that Shahnaz was one of the most crafty of hockey players that Pakistan has so far produced. At the same time he also was an explosive player who stood tall among his generation and would have easily walked into any side in the world.
Being given a feminine name, that was the only soft thing about him as he was a marauder on the left wing, and was an inner to Samiullah in the later part of his career he ran shivers down the spined of oppostion defences. To them he was nemesis, virtuallly unstoppable on his day and ahandful on all others.

In early 70's he was the only really mobile Pakisni forward but the mid 70'2 he had become such a force that his absence from the field through injury was a major cause of the Greenshirts narrowlly losing two prestige assigments: the '75 World Cup final against India at Kaula Lumpur adn the '76 Montral Olympics against Australia in the Semis. On both occasions, Pakistan went down 2-1 on controversial circumstances.
The good thing about shahnaz seemed to have good hockey head over his shoulders, that at least was one's impression of him after his rather breif stint coach of the Pakistan Junior team, which in his supervision won the Junior Asia Cup. One had great jopes that once he got the job with senior team he would do well for Pakistan hockey. Sadly, those expectations remained unfulfilled when in his tenure as coach under Zaka in 1998-99 and then in his steam as manager during the '99 Asian Cup one found that he lack in courage, conviction and imagination to make a meaningful contribution.