Mohammad Abbas, the county legend underappreciated by Pakistan

Mohammad Abbas should come in black and white. It isn't only the immaculate but old-fashioned hair, it's the entire package; the forever tucked-in shirt, the punctuality, the unfailing politeness and the measure of his words (much like the measure of his bowling). It's a surprise to learn he has a social media presence at all, let alone an Insta account with nearly 100k followers. Even the pace of his bowling - medium-fast rather than fast-medium, as it used to be described before speed guns - feels a little anachronistic these days.

Above all, he's carved out a cricket career that feels very old-world. He's a Test-only specialist, now in his seventh season of county cricket, an English summer veteran, and a throwback to when the County Championship was the place elite cricketers went to become better cricketers and better-paid professionals.

Towards the end of July, at his current home of Trent Bridge, he picked up his 800th first-class wicket. Only five other active first-class bowlers have as many. It was a very Abbas wicket too: fourth-stump line, good length, an almost imperceptible straightening, a thin edge and a straightforward pouch for the keeper.

He remembers a few of them. The first-ever, against Abbottabad in Sheikhupura over 16 years ago (same as above, except it nipped in and trapped the batter Fawad Khan leg before). The first Test wicket, Kraigg Brathwaite, from only the second ball Abbas bowled in Tests (ditto above, this time nipping away). And, of course, that Ben Stokes wicket, which wasn't like any of the above but was pure magic.

"The Ben Stokes one yep," Abbas recalls. "I have a good record against batters who stay in their crease, so they come out to combat that often. He came out to take away my swing and seam, which meant lbw and bowled were out. But I still got him bowled."

He also remembers his 500th, of the leftie James Bracey. "The Dukes ball was reversing, and it was hot. I set him up quite well. I came at him from round the wicket, taking the ball away. Then after two-three overs, I brought one back in which he left, and it came in and hit middle stump. There's no comparison to that feeling in any other form of cricket. It's a test of your patience, your mind, your fitness, your skills."

More or less that same template is still working, for Nottinghamshire this season where he moved after four immensely successful seasons with Hampshire (a move he and the county have repeatedly said had nothing to do with incoming Indian ownership). His county record - 285 wickets from 73 games at 20 - places him among the richest histories of Pakistani fast bowlers in England: Sarfraz Nawaz with Northants (511 wickets at 23.4), Imran Khan (537 at 21.08), Wasim Akram (394 at 21.83) and Waqar Younis (351 at 20.74).

He loves county cricket, for precisely those reasons a cricketer with extensive experience of Pakistan's more haphazard domestic first-class cricket structure might. "The thing I love the most [about county cricket] is the discipline and regularity of it," he says. "The season is April to September. They take a break in October and then the schedule for the next season is announced in November. Then there is no change in that, no venue change, nothing. We can all plan properly, whatever cricket is on for the next six months, the training, the prep, or when we spend time with the family. Facilities-wise they are very good. Then the communication is excellent, they do it properly."

Also, as the Ws, and even Imran discovered, it isn't just the cricket. It is a life experience. "County cricket makes you an entire human being. You're away from family, you're living by yourself, you're sorting out your own meals, you're travelling, doing the laundry… you become a disciplined person because of it."

And even at the age of 35, he believes he is learning from county cricket. Being ignored by Pakistan for three years until late last year allowed him the space to complete an ECB coaching course. He worked with young local talent at Hampshire and the exchange of knowledge, he stresses, was two-way. He's bowled with both the Dukes and Kookaburra balls in the same season and obviously prefers the former, though sees that the latter ensures some balance in the game. He's bowled on hybrid pitches, on green tops against emasculated batters and, in the Bazball era, on flatter surfaces against liberated bashers. He has taken wickets in the Kolpak era and is now taking wickets in the Brexit era.

"My arm is two inches longer than normal, my elbow is not entirely straight and my fingers are quite long as well. Everyone is different, with different skills. But as with anything, as you do more of one thing, you improve, and your mind grows.

"In county cricket for example, I've learnt to use the crease a lot more. When I start I will do so from closer to the stumps. Then I will gradually change angles, move wider. I will swing it in, or out from wider. I've worked with different coaches, Graeme Welch at Hants, who was very good. Had a very good four years there. Paul Nixon at Leicestershire also. Now working with Peter Moores [at Notts] and have had a really good experience so far. Every county has a different environment and culture, so you only learn more the more you play."

The one thing that has changed is the pace. In the first 18 months or so after his Test debut, his average speeds hovered around the 128kph mark. Since an injury to his right shoulder at the end of 2018, the average pace has dropped to around 125kph. He has compensated in some ways - his release point on Pakistan's tour of South Africa earlier this year, for example, was significantly higher than it had been - but Pakistan have generally viewed his lack of pace as expendable.

Nearly 20 years ago, Mohammad Asif was similarly asked about his relative lack of pace and his response was a rant for the ages, the long and short of which was that pace has been needlessly fetishised in Pakistan when really it's all about skills and intelligence. Abbas, a spiritual comrade of Asif's bowling but chalk to the cheese of Asif's personality, does not rant in response to the query. Instead, exactly as rationally as you might expect, he explains that the combinations within a bowling attack, much like a batting order, are more important. Good to have pace yes, but also good to contrast it with the skills-and-control guy.

He also adds some nuance about the recorded pace at release - which is what we see on broadcasts - and pace off the pitch. "I speak to batters, about how different it is facing me if I'm bowling 128-130kph than to somebody who bowls 140. They say they don't really feel too much of a difference. Because my deliveries quicken up off the pitch.

"Think about it like this: If you throw some pebbles across a body of water, some will hit the water, skim across for a bit and then just drop in. Others will skim in such a way that it looks like they are gathering pace off the water. It's different skills. Off the pitch, seam bowlers are more effective because batters don't know which way the ball might come off it and how quickly it skids off it."

Those skills were on full display in Centurion last December, when he nearly bowled Pakistan to a rare Test win in South Africa. Asif was, as it happens, the star the last time they won a Test in the country.

The Centurion Test was Abbas' first for Pakistan in over three years, an exclusion that was never satisfactorily explained, other than with sighs about the lack of pace. Abbas was so nervous on that return that in his first spell he didn't realise for the first five or so overs that he was running in off the wrong mark. Once he realised the error, he settled quickly; as Pakistan looked to defend a target of 148, he whirred through nearly 20 overs unchanged, a reminder of peak Abbas: the good - great, actually - lengths, the wobble-seam movement, the variable bounce, the intelligence to build a long, probing spell, the indefatigable stamina. And, as he's keen to point out, the pace didn't dip the longer he bowled; in fact, it crept up a little.

Though he was rested against West Indies after that, he's found his way back into the Pakistan set-up, recently awarded a central contract for the first time since 2021. Secretly, he might consider himself fortunate for not having been in the mix all this time, through what has been an especially low ebb for Pakistan on and off the field. Even now it is a dark, unrewarding place. Coaches and players are as insecure as they have ever been, the domestic calendar is as confused as it's ever been; decision-making is entirely centralised into one man, and murmurs about the board's financial health are beginning to gather attention.

For Abbas, all this likely pales into insignificance, given his own personal losses. He lost both his younger sister and brother within 70 days at the start of this year. He speaks of it with an invaluable equanimity, which perhaps is itself part consequence of a tough early life. Rags-to-riches tales of Pakistani pace bowlers are not new, though their abundance never dilutes them. In fact, each should act as a reminder to those running the game of their basic duty to nurture and care for talent that fights its way through unimaginable odds, and not to squander it.

Abbas comes from Jathekey, a village not far from Sialkot. Cricket, as is the way in so many households, was tolerated as recreation but discouraged as profession. He grew up playing tape-ball cricket but once he finished schooling, the priority was to find work. For a few years he managed a job alongside tape-ball cricket in the evenings, where he would make some money. Initially he worked as a welder in a factory in the nearby town of Sambrial.

"Atter six months or so, in the summer, my skin used to burn. I couldn't sleep at night. We didn't have proper safety equipment like glasses, so my eyes felt like I had dust in them all the time. I couldn't walk to the bathroom at night because it was like someone had thrown dust into my eyes. There came a time when the skin on my face was peeling off and I knew I had to leave."

He moved to work at the Sialkot dry port, then at a leather factory - which he proudly points out to his kids now whenever they drive from Lahore to Sialkot - before settling as an office boy at the local courts. His night-time tape-ball games kept his cricket alive and when the opportunity arose to try out in Under-19 district-level trials, he went along. The camp's management, including former Pakistan international Zahid Fazal, were impressed, not least - ironically - by his pace.

At one of the trials, he was asked to bowl in two games back-to-back on the same day. But when he was first called up to a camp, he struggled to make it in on time because of his day job at the courts. Though his employers accommodated as much as they could, there soon came a time when a life decision had to be made: keep the job and continue to earn a living that provides for the family or take a chance with his cricket. Which, at that level, would barely pay in any case. After a sleepless night or two, he made the choice to go all in with cricket.

And even after this, it would be on the toss of a coin that his career turned. He'd played one game for Sialkot U-19s in an inter-district tournament in the summer of 2007 and had done well enough to expect to be playing the next. Except his name wasn't on the team sheet when that game came around. The captain Khurram Shehzad (who would later play for Qatar) wanted him in, the selectors wanted another bowler who came with influential backing. After prolonged debate they decided to toss a coin. Shehzad called correct, duly picked Abbas and told him he better come armed with prayers. Despite an ankle niggle (from wearing poor quality spikes), a fortuitous change of ends allowed Abbas to pick up five wickets and so a career was launched.

Or rather, it was when he actually started learning the game. Until then everything he knew about bowling came from watching it on TV; Glenn McGrath, Shaun Pollock and the Ws, although one day, inspired by a Shane Warne stumping he'd seen, he went back and aped the great leggie for a day, with success.

"There was a 40-day stint in an academy in Sheikhupura and that year we topped the three-day and ODI cups. Then there was a three-month academy in Sialkot, one of the best ones for me, in terms of improving skills and fitness. Shahid Anwar was coach, Haider Rasool, a hockey player, was the fitness trainer. That really improved my skills a lot and was the first proper formal coaching I'd had."

The results were evident. A year later, in the 2008-09 season, in the U-19 regional finals, he took a ten-for to lead Sialkot to the title. A first-class debut followed months later and, well, not just like that, but 57 first-class matches, a ton of sweat and toil, plenty of fortune and some hiccups, and bundles of wickets, with the help and support of friends, families and coaches, and eight years later, a Pakistan debut. And suddenly he's closer to the end than the beginning.

There's a smidgeon of regret at not having broken through in T20s, though he thinks he could have made it. He refers to the Player-of-the-Match trophy he has at home from one of the three PSL games he's played, for Multan Sultans in 2018-19. "My stats are four overs, 16 runs [actually 14], two wickets, in a double-wicket maiden and the next game, 4-0-23-3 [actually 4-0-22-3]. After that, things are not in my hand. I do enjoy it - you change your lengths a little, bring in some variations. It's not a massive difference, zameen aasman ka nahin hai [not like the difference between the ground and the sky]. If you've played four-day cricket and then you play T20, it's like having a little dessert after a meal.

"But yeah, a little regret. I look at my stats and those of others playing the PSL and it's not that different. If you can play red ball, how can you not play T20s? If I work four days and earn more by working three hours, why not do that? I have played T20, I have experience, but as you do one kind of work more, you'll get better at that, whether that is cricket, or business, or media."

There is a season to finish with Notts and then the contemplation of what comes next in county cricket (his deal with Notts is only for this season) and with Pakistan. He will, as ever, turn up on the domestic circuit in Pakistan, and possibly be in the squads to play South Africa at home. Whether he actually plays those depends on how hard Pakistan go with spin, to replicate their strategy from their last home season. Next summer, a three-Test series in England is looming as a big away tour, a homecoming of sorts given his county exploits, and - as he'll be 36 - who knows, a fitting farewell?

Not that he is thinking about an end at all. He's just grateful to be where he is at this moment.

"I'm happy with what I've been given in life. Not every person gets everything in life. What I have, others don't. What they have, I don't. I'm just grateful that Allah has given me respect in a difficult format. When I was dropped from the [Pakistan] team, I was down. But I saw my stats and checked them against the top bowlers in the world, and I was very thankful. I would've gotten depressed but that actually turned it for me."