Abbas Breaks Imran Khan's Record, Then Asks the ICC for More Tests to Break

Mohammad Abbas doesn't bowl fast. He doesn't reverse it extravagantly. He doesn't have a celebration that trends on social media or a franchise contract that makes headlines. What he has, after 30 Test matches, is a bowling average of 22.69 — and that number now sits above one that belonged to Imran Khan for the better part of four decades.

Imran Khan: 362 wickets in 88 Tests at 22.81. The benchmark for every Pakistan fast bowler since the 1992 World Cup, since partition, since the concept of Pakistan cricket as identity. Nobody was supposed to touch that average, least of all a medium-pacer from Sialkot who bowls at 130kph and relies on seam position rather than sheer pace.

And yet here we are. In the first Test against West Indies at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba, Abbas took 4/50 in the first innings and 3/14 in the second — seven wickets in the match on a surface that rewarded precision over hostility. The three second-innings wickets tipped his career record past Imran's, making Abbas the owner of the best bowling average by any Pakistan pace bowler with 100 or more Test wickets.

But here is the thing about Mohammad Abbas that separates him from every other record-breaker in modern cricket: he used his post-day press conference at Tarouba not to talk about surpassing Imran Khan, but to talk about the fact that Pakistan barely play Test cricket anymore.

"I would request the ICC to grant us more Test matches," Abbas said, with the quiet intensity of a man who has waited three years between Test appearances and knows the clock is ticking on his career. "By the time you get used to them, the series is already over."

That sentence deserves to be printed on the back of every ICC Future Tours Programme document from now until the heat death of the universe. A 36-year-old has just broken the most sacred bowling record in Pakistan cricket history, and his immediate concern is that he doesn't get to play enough of the format he's best at. Not money. Not franchise contracts. Not his legacy. Just: give us more Test matches.

The Abbas comeback story is one of the most underrated in modern cricket. After a spectacular start — 59 wickets in his first 10 Tests at an average of 15.64, including a series-defining spell against England at Lord's in 2018 — his career cratered. Between 2019 and 2021, he managed only 24 wickets at 34.45. The PCB dropped him from central contracts. Pakistan moved on to Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf. Abbas was yesterday's news.

What Abbas did next was the opposite of what most discarded Pakistan cricketers do. He didn't sit at home waiting for the phone to ring. He went to Hampshire in English county cricket, where he quietly accumulated 162 wickets at under 20 — numbers that would make any red-ball bowler in the world jealous. He refined his craft on English decks that rewarded exactly his skill set: seam position, patience, discipline, and the ability to make the batter play at every single delivery.

In December 2024, Pakistan finally brought him back against South Africa. He took 7 wickets, including a second-innings five-for. It was as if he'd never left — except he had. For three years. And nobody at the PCB seemed particularly bothered about it.

Abbas's plea lands differently when you look at Pakistan's actual Test schedule. Since the start of 2024, Pakistan have played two-match series against Bangladesh, South Africa, and now West Indies — six Tests across 18 months against teams outside the Big Three. England is next, three Tests in August and September. But the broader point stands: Pakistan's bowlers spend months in franchise cricket between Test assignments, then are expected to perform immediately in the format that demands the most physical and mental adjustment.

Abbas has lived this reality more than anyone. He was dropped partly because he couldn't maintain his extraordinary early average — but how much of that decline was caused by Pakistan's fragmented Test schedule, by the months-long gaps between red-ball assignments, by a system that treats Test cricket as an afterthought between PSL seasons and bilateral white-ball tours?

When Abbas says "by the time you get used to them, the series is already over," he's describing the structural problem that makes it almost impossible for Pakistan to develop the deep bowling stocks that India, Australia, and England maintain through regular Test cricket. You can't build consistency in a format you barely play.

The other thing worth noting about this record is what it says about the nature of pace bowling itself. Imran Khan bowled genuine fast-medium to fast. Wasim Akram bowled with swing at pace. Waqar Younis was a reverse-swing artist who could hit 150kph. Shoaib Akhtar was the first to bowl 100mph in international cricket.

Abbas bowls at 130kph. He's a medium-pacer in an era obsessed with pace guns. His weapon isn't speed — it's seam position, line, the ability to make the ball move just enough off the surface to find edges, and the patience to bowl the same probing line for 15 overs straight without losing concentration or shape. He's the anti-spectacle. The unsexy bowler. The guy who wouldn't get picked in a fantasy league.

And he now owns the best bowling average in Pakistan's Test history among fast bowlers. Better than Imran. Better than Wasim. Better than Waqar. Better than Shaheen, who at 26 was dropped from this very Test squad. Better than every express quick who ever pulled on the star and crescent.

Sometimes cricket tells you that pace is only one way to take wickets. The other way is to be Mohammad Abbas: to hit the seam, probe the fourth stump, and trust that if you ask enough questions, the batter will eventually give you the wrong answer.

Records in cricket usually close a conversation. Abbas's opens one. If a 36-year-old medium-pacer who was discarded for three years can come back and surpass Imran Khan's bowling average, what does that say about how Pakistan treated him during the years they didn't pick him? What does it say about the system that let him leave? What does it say about the franchise-first schedule that gives Pakistan's best red-ball bowlers months of white-ball cricket and weeks of Tests?

Abbas isn't asking those questions. He's too professional for that. He's just asking for more Test matches. But the subtext is deafening. The best Test bowler in Pakistan history — by the only number that matters — is standing in a press conference in Trinidad, telling the ICC that he'd quite like to play the format more often before he's too old to bowl.

The ICC, as usual, will not be listening. But the record book is. And the record book now says: Mohammad Abbas, 116 wickets, 30 Tests, average 22.69. Better than Imran Khan. Not bad for a man who bowls at 130kph and just wants more Test cricket.