Mohammad Abbas

Muhammad Abbas was born on 10 March 1990 in a small village called Jathekey on the outskirts of Sambrial, Sialkot district, Punjab. Before cricket paid his bills, he worked in a leather factory doing welding work and assisted at a law firm in Sialkot. It is a background that makes his ascent to 110 Test wickets considerably more remarkable than the numbers alone suggest.

He made his first-class debut in 2009 for Sialkot in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, taking four wickets in three games. For the next six years he was a reliable but unremarkable presence in the domestic circuit, playing for Pakistan Television and Khan Research Laboratories. The turning point arrived in the 2015-16 season when he topped the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy bowling charts with 61 wickets in 10 matches at 16.78 for Khan Research Laboratories. He then led the charts again in 2016-17, this time with 71 wickets at an astonishing average of 12.74, a haul that could not be ignored. He supplemented that with 15 wickets in the Departmental One Day Cup, and Pakistan’s selectors had seen enough.

His Test debut came on 21 April 2017 at Sabina Park, Kingston, when captain Misbah-ul-Haq handed him his cap against the West Indies. He dismissed Kraigg Brathwaite with his second delivery in Test cricket, a moment that announced what his career would become. He took three wickets in that match and five in his third Test, finishing the Caribbean tour with 15 wickets across three matches.

In 2018 he was named ICC Breakout Star of the Year in men’s cricket, took player-of-the-series honours in England, became the joint-quickest Pakistan pace bowler to 50 Test wickets (reaching the mark in his tenth Test), and recorded the first ten-wicket match haul by a pace bowler in the UAE when he took 10 for 95 against Australia. The PCB also awarded him Test Player of the Year for 2018. The ICC named him in the Men’s Test Team of the Year for that calendar year.

County cricket sharpened him further. He played for Leicestershire from 2018, moved to Hampshire in 2021 where he took a hat-trick against Middlesex in April of that year, and collected 180 wickets for Hampshire across three seasons at 19.26. In February 2025 he joined Nottinghamshire on a short-term deal, taking 5 for 31 on debut against Hampshire at Trent Bridge, before signing a two-year contract with Derbyshire County Cricket Club in December 2025.

He lost his Pakistan central contract in July 2021 and spent three years outside the Test team despite continuing to perform in domestic cricket. The recall came in December 2024 for Pakistan’s tour of South Africa.

In his first Test back he took six wickets in the fourth innings, finishing the series as joint top wicket-taker alongside Marco Jansen with 10 wickets. During the second Test he took his 100th Test wicket, dismissing Kwena Maphaka. His most recent Test appearance was in Sylhet against Bangladesh in May 2026. At 36 and ranked 28th in the ICC Test bowling rankings, Mohammad Abbas is still an active part of Pakistan’s red-ball planning.