[10] When Butt's father divorced his mother and left the home he had to bear the financial responsibilities of his sisters' higher education.

However, instead of rushing straight for the limelight of international cricket, he got his head down and consolidated by playing consistently for his region and the youth teams, until the Pakistan selectors finally drafted him in 2003.

[13] After his debut, Butt was dropped, and he struggled to regain his place due to some stiff competition for the openers' spots.

In the ODI against India on 13 November 2004, as Pakistan chased down 292, he formed partnerships first with Shoaib Malik, putting on 113, and subsequently with Inzamam-Ul-Haq.

Despite having retired for seven overs due to severe cramp, he returned to steer Pakistan home, finishing on 108 not out.

But things started looking up again during the winter Test series against England, in which he scored a century and two fifties, with a more cautious attitude to his innings building than he had previously shown.

[18] In August 2010, Butt and two other players, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, were among those named by a News of the World sting where undercover reporters paid an agent loosely affiliated with several players on Pakistan's squad a bribe in return for detailed information on when no-balls would be bowled.

However, on 2 September 2010, after the warm-up List A game between Pakistan and Somerset, the International Cricket Council announced that they had suspended Asif, Amir and Butt under the provisions of the ICC's Anti-Corruption Code.

[19] Later it became known that Butt and the other two players implicated in the scandal were in possession of bills with the same serial numbers as those the reporter had paid Majeed earlier.

[26] During the 2017–18 National T20 Cup he jointly with Kamran Akmal set the world record opening partnership in T20 history of unbeaten 209 runstand, surpassing the previous highest opening partnership of 207 in any form of T20 cricket held by Joe Denly and Daniel Bell-Drummond.

[35] He was also the leading run-scorer for Water and Power Development Authority in the 2018–19 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, with 610 runs in ten matches.

[41] In October 2020, Butt withdrew his name from Quaid-e-Azam Trophy to explore a future in a non-playing role in the game.

He also has the ability to cut the ball very fine down to third man if there are no slips, especially against spin bowlers, as he showed to great effect in his above-mentioned innings of 108 not out.