Abrar Ahmed is a Pakistani professional cricketer who has represented his country in the longest version of the sport (Tests), as a frontline spin bowler. In the Pakistani domestic circuit, he has played for the regional teams Sindh (2020-21) and Karachi Whites (2017) across all formats. At the franchise level, Abrar has turned out for Karachi Kings (2017, 2019), Peshawar Zalmi, and Islamabad United (2023) in the PSL (Pakistan Super League); and Comilla Victorians in the BPL (Bangladesh Premier League).
Born Name
Abrar Ahmed
Nick Name
Harry Potter
Abrar Ahmed as seen in a Twitter Post in December 2021 (Abrar Ahmed / Twitter)
Sun Sign
Libra
Born Place
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Residence
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Nationality
Occupation
Professional Cricketer
Abrar Ahmed as seen in a Twitter Post in October 2022 (Abrar Ahmed / Twitter)
Family
Father – Noor Islam
Mother – Safin Jan
Siblings – Shahzad Khan (Older Brother) (Cricketer), Sajid Ahmed (Older Brother). He has 2 other older brothers and 3 older sisters.
Manager
He has been represented by Talha Aisham, Manager and Booking Agent, Saya Corporation, Sports Management Agency, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States.
Batting
Right-Handed
Bowling
Right-Arm Leg-Break
Role
Bowler
Jersey Number
40 – Test Match
Build
Athletic
Height
6 ft or 183 cm
Weight
71 kg or 156.5 lbs
Abrar Ahmed as seen in a Twitter Post in November 2022 (Abrar Ahmed / Twitter)
Race / Ethnicity
Asian
He is of Pashtun descent.
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Dark Brown
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Distinctive Features
Toned physique
Bespectacled
Side-cropped, side-parted hair
Often sports a light stubble
Religion
Islam
Abrar Ahmed as seen in a Twitter Post in August 2022 (Abrar Ahmed / Twitter)
Abrar Ahmed Facts
In December 2022, Abrar made his test match (and international) debut in the 2nd match of a 3-match bilateral home series against England. He was Pakistan’s best bowler in both innings – his figures reading 7/114 (22 overs) and 4/120 (29 overs) – even as England went on to win a hard-fought match by a narrow margin of 26 runs. His match haul of 11 wickets made him just the 2nd Pakistani bowler to have recorded 10 or more wickets in his maiden test match.
Abrar’s haul of 7/114 in the first innings of the match made him just the 3rd Pakistani bowler to have recorded a 7-wicket haul on his test match debut. These 7 wickets were the first 7 wickets to have fallen in England’s innings. The first (and only other) bowler to have achieved this feat on his test match debut was Alf Valentine of the West Indies in 1950. He had picked up each of the first 8 English wickets to have fallen.
The only other Pakistani bowler to have dismissed the top 7 batters of the opposition in a test match innings before Abrar was Saqlain Mushtaq who was serving as the head coach of the Pakistani team in this match. Amazingly, Saqlain too achieved this feat against England. He had dismissed the top 8 batters in the first innings of a test match against England in 2000.
The first 5 wickets in Abrar’s 7/114 performance were scalped within the opening session of the 1st day of the test match. This made him the first bowler since Alf Valentine in the aforementioned test match (1950) to have completed a 5-wicket haul in the opening session of his debut test match. Incredibly, England scored 180 runs in that session, the most runs ever scored in the opening session of a test match.
In the next (3rd and final) match of the series, Abrar was Pakistan’s 2nd-best bowler in the first half of the match (4/150 (34.4 overs)) and the team’s best bowler in the second half (2/78 (12 overs)). England hammered Pakistan by 8 wickets in this match and won the 3-match series by a 3-0 margin to become the first team to claim a clean sweep in a 3-match test series in Pakistan. England also became the 2nd team, after Australia, to have won a bilateral test match series in Pakistan on 3 separate occasions.
It was also the first instance of Pakistan getting whitewashed at home in a test series of 3 or more matches. The defeat in the last match of the series was Pakistan’s 4th successive defeat in a home test match, their first such streak in history.
Despite playing in only the last 2 matches of this 3-match series, Abrar finished as the leading wicket-taker in the series on either side – with 17 dismissals to his name at the cost of 462 runs.
Just a few days later, in the 1st match of a 2-match bilateral home series against New Zealand, Abrar was Pakistan’s best bowler in both innings – his figures reading 5/205 (67.5 overs) and 1/23 (3 overs). In the 2nd and final match of the series, he was Pakistan’s best bowler in the first half of the match (4/149 (37 overs)) and recorded figures of 1/103 (33 overs) in the second half. Both these matches ended in a draw and Abrar finished as Pakistan’s leading wicket-taker in the series – with 11 dismissals to his name at the cost of 480 runs.
In these 4 aforementioned matches (2 each against England and New Zealand), the first 4 test (and international) matches of his career, Abrar was Pakistan’s best bowler in 6 out of 8 innings. In 5 of those, he picked up at least 4 wickets. He, however, took a lot of punishment as well, conceding more than 100 runs in 6 of those 8 innings.
In these 4 matches, he conceded an eye-watering aggregate of 942 runs, the most conceded by a bowler in his first 4 test matches ever, by quite a distance. This unwanted record was previously held by another Pakistani spin bowler – Abdur Rehman (789 runs).
Abrar is a ‘Hafiz’ (literally meaning ‘memorizer’), a term used by Muslims to refer to someone who has completely memorized the Quran, the central religious text of Islam.
