Pakistan were on course for another backbreaking day, at the receiving end of some Bazball batting on the first morning of the Multan Test in December 2022. A week earlier, England had plundered a record 506 runs in 75 overs on day one in Rawalpindi. Spooked by that loss on a flat track, the hosts had left the wicket drier in Multan in the hope that it would provide purchase to their spinners.
Now, in the ninth over of the morning, Babar Azam tossed the ball to Abrar Ahmed. And immediately, the bespectacled debutant made an impact, Zak Crawley left bewildered by a googly that spun in and hit the top of off.
Ghulam Ali, the former opener and then head coach of Sindh's second XI, had wanted to gauge whether Abrar was actually as good as his domestic U19 record suggest. He was preparing his side for the Grade II Quaid-e-Azam trophy and wanted to see if Abrar was ready for long-form cricket. He padded up to face him in the nets. Within a few deliveries, Abrar had trapped him in front with that same googly. Ali was convinced and picked him; Abrar took 13 wickets in his very first game.
Abrar's Test career has not quite taken off, but as looked more likely when he first emerged in the PSL a decade ago now, he has evolved into a mainstay in Pakistan's white-ball teams. He is their first mystery, or carrom-ball, spinner and such has been his impact that no Pakistan spinner has more wickets than him since his T20I and ODI debuts .
That was recognised recently by Sunrisers Leeds, who overlooked acute geopolitical complexities to pick him at the Hundred auction. He was the only Pakistani player bought by an Indian-owned team there. Quetta Gladiators had earlier paid PKR 70 million (about US$ 249,900) to retain his services for the 11th season of the PSL, making him the most expensive player in their side.
That Quetta played the PSL final last year - their first since 2019 - was mostly down to Abrar. In a league that increasingly rolls out belters and produces high scores, his economy has been 7.57 over the last two seasons, among the lowest. He is locked with Shaheen Afridi as the highest wicket-taker (33 wickets) and is the only spinner to have taken at least 30 wickets.
****
Unsurprisingly, he first made his name in Karachi's cut-throat tape-ball circuit for his ability to turn the ball both ways, from the front of his hand and with a mere flick of his fingers. Even before he was a teenager, teams were hiring him for matches around the city, as his wizardry got the better of established batters.
Bijli Ground in Patel Para became one of his favourites. "People used to come especially to watch him bowl," says Sajid Khan, Abrar's brother. "Despite being the youngest among all the players - he was only 11-12 - he used to trouble everyone. His two overs used to be hell for the opposition."
Abrar grew up in Karachi's Jamshed Road, the youngest of eight siblings - five brothers and three sisters. Sajid is six years his elder. His father, Noor Islam, who runs a water-tanker business in the city, migrated from a village called Shinkiari in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before Abrar was born.
Abrar's love for the game, and especially for spin, goes back as far as anyone can remember. "Once, we were watching Pakistan versus India and Saqlain Mushtaq was struggling against Virender Sehwag," Sajid remembers. "Abrar, who must have been five or six, was already plotting a plan every ball to get Sehwag out. He would tell our father what balls he would bowl to get him out."
Growing up, Sunil Narine and Ajantha Mendis fascinated Abrar; he would study their variations and try to replicate them in tape-ball games. Early in his PSL career, he had the chance to meet Narine; Abrar was keen to polish his offspin, and Narine curious about the mechanics of Abrar's googly.
Abrar was certain from an early age he wanted to be an international cricketer, but that ambition clashed with his parents' wishes. His father wanted him to become a chartered accountant, and his mother wanted at least one of her sons to become a Hafiz-e-Quran, someone who has memorised the Quran by heart.
"One of our elder brothers tried it but couldn't complete it," Sajid says. "Once, our mother was crying as she prayed for him to complete his memorisation. Abrar, in sixth grade at the time, went to her and said, 'I will memorise the Quran for you, but you have to promise me that you will let me become a cricketer.'
"So he left the school to join a seminary and became Hafiz-e-Quran in a year and a half. It usually takes much, much longer than that."
An important moment came in 2014, when Abrar joined the Rashid Latif Cricket Academy (RLCA) in Karachi's Gulberg, a cricketing hub.
"It has been over a decade, but it feels like yesterday when I first saw him when he came for the trials," recalls Latif, a former Pakistan captain and wicketkeeper. "He told me he plays tape-ball cricket and has earned a reputation there, so we were surprised when he made the hard-ball turn. And he could bowl a googly. I had previously seen Mendis do it [with that action]. I got footage of him bowling without his shirt to be sure that his bowling action was legal."
The RLCA management had Abrar registered so he could play in an inter-district competition that would put him on the pathway to Karachi's age-group and senior sides. But the decision to join the academy did not go down well at home.
"Our parents worried about his future," Sajid says. "Our father stopped his pocket money and my brother and I stopped lending him our motorbikes, as he would be gone for the whole day and we were all concerned about where he was spending his time. But he found a way around all that and started to hitchhike to the RLCA."
His insubordination paid off. The RLCA recognised they had someone special on their hands and selected him in a batch of ten cricketers who would get a monthly stipend of PKR 8000.
"It was after he started to get the stipend that he told me what was going on in his life," Latif says. "When a kid that young joins us, he does not have resources to spend on his clothing or equipment, so we look after them. This [stipend] is just a small token, but it makes a big difference to their life."
Soon a cousin, Shafiq bhai, who happened to be a chartered accountant, staged an intervention and spoke to Abrar's father. "He made our father realise that stopping Abrar from doing what he wants to do would not benefit anyone," Sajid says. "He proposed an ultimatum. It was agreed that Abrar would go back to his studies if he failed to become a cricketer in two years."
Abrar made his inter-district and Karachi U19 debuts soon after, in 2015, taking wickets and making an impact throughout. The PCB's records from these tournaments note him as a right-arm offbreak bowler, a miscategorisation, and also an indication of the rarity of this kind of spinner in Pakistan. For a country that discovered reverse swing and invented the doosra, the lack of a mystery spinner has always felt slightly incongruous.
In part, it is because of the rise of the very format that Abrar thrived in. Before tape-ball cricket, Karachi was home to tennis-ball cricket. Back in the 1970s and '80s, Nadeem Moosa was a tennis-ball king. He played first-class cricket in the mid-'80s as a conventional slow left-arm spinner but in tennis-ball games, he would squeeze the ball in his fingers and flick it from the front of his hand, getting prodigious turn and making it impossible to read his variations. He was so successful in those games that the counter tactic that emerged was to wrap electric tape around the tennis ball, making it harder to squeeze, and giving birth to the tape-ball circuit. Fingerspinners, mystery spinners and carrom-ball spinners like Moosa became a rarer sight.
Until Abrar.
"He piqued everyone's curiosity with his unusual variations," says Mohammad Masroor, who coached at RLCA and would later coach Abrar for Karachi U19s. "Because there wasn't a trend of mystery bowlers in Pakistan, everyone watched him bowl very closely to pick his variations.
"He had good control over his length and had that bite, which gave him good bounce. He caused difficulties for everyone, including [international cricketers] Khurram Manzoor, Fawad Alam, and Khalid Latif.
"He was very vocal in the nets and used to celebrate when he got senior players out, which juniors don't usually do. It showed how assured he was about his abilities. He used to argue when they refused to accept they had gotten out to him. Initially, his confidence was seen as arrogance, but as everyone got to know him, they realised that he had a pure heart and was just a straightforward person."
In 2016, Abrar had his breakout season, singlehandedly leading Zone III - the weakest of the seven Karachi zones - to their first Regional Inter District U-19 Tournament title, taking 54 wickets at an average of 12.33 in six matches. "Zone III could never have thought about winning a title and he made it happen," Latif smiles, talking about the tournament. "It was a one-man show and that is what made me happy. He was unknown and suddenly got recognition from that tournament."
He also found acceptance, as his father finally came around to the idea of his son as a professional cricketer. Abrar found more success in U19 inter-regional cricket, playing under Masroor and thriving in white- and red-ball formats.
"I really liked his confidence," says Masroor. "He was always eager to bowl and was never daunted by who was on strike. He used to ask for the ball with the promise of providing breakthroughs. I asked him whether he would be open to bowling inside the powerplay, to which he showed willingness. He used to get us two, three wickets in the powerplay and was very economical because nobody could understand what he was doing with the ball."
By now, the PSL had been launched and Masroor and Latif were working with Karachi Kings' talent identification and player development programme. They planned to pick Abrar as an emerging player for the 2017 edition.
"I told Rashid Latif that he is ready for the next step," Masroor recalls. "We had a break during [an U19] tournament and I flew him to Karachi. The Karachi Kings management liked him and he was picked in the emerging category."
Abrar impressed immediately on his PSL debut in Dubai, tying down Eoin Morgan in a game against Peshwar Zalmi and finishing with 4-0-22-0. Mickey Arthur, then Pakistan and Karachi Kings head coach, thought he might be a solution to Pakistan's middle-overs bowling problems. Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, also with Karachi at the time, were impressed too.
However, Abrar's season was cut short, his career stalling after only two matches, when he was diagnosed with stress fractures of the back.
"It was a tough time for him and us," Masroor says and talks of Abrar's eagerness to return to action. "He showed up to the ground and we sent him back many times. He needed proper rehabilitation under a physiotherapist and a doctor. He would go to local masseurs and would show up at the academy to bowl, saying he was fine. It was a challenge to make him realise the importance of proper rehab."
He even made it into Latif's bad books on this count. "There are very few players I have scolded in life, Latif says. "But I scolded him one day as he was not taking his rehabilitation seriously. He would be at the academy watching others play, rather than using that time for his rehab. I knew a couple of physiotherapists and I sent him to them. Sometimes you have to be strict with the players for their own benefit."
Abrar returned eventually in 2020 and such was the impression he had made, interest in him remained high. He was snapped up by Peshawar Zalmi in the PSL, and Sindh named him in an expanded squad for the 2020-21 domestic season.
"I was playing a veterans cricket match at the RLCA when I first met Abrar," remembers Ghulam Ali, who coached Abrar in Sindh's 1st and 2nd XI teams. "I was about to join the PCB as a coach and word had spread. Abrar met me, I asked him to bowl and he was exceptional."
Working closely with Abrar during the 2nd XI National T20 in Lahore convinced Ali that he could make it in red-ball cricket too, in the upcoming Grade II Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. But he wanted to be sure about his red-ball abilities. "I had grown up playing fingerspinners in tennis and tape-ball cricket in Karachi and I could read their variations. I wanted to see whether I could read his carrom ball, googly, and flipper. I let him know that it was an audition for a spot in the red-ball side.
"He bowled two variations of his legbreak and googly and sent down some straighter ones. He got me with one of his googlies that didn't turn much. I decided then that he is in my red-ball team."
It was at this moment that questions about which format Abrar would thrive in more first emerged. Ali wanted him in his 2nd XI red-ball side, but Basit Ali, who was head coach of the 1st XI, wanted him in his 1st XI Sindh side for the National T20 tournament. The PCB got involved, and eventually went with Ghulam Ali's rationale, that playing red-ball cricket would help Abrar's white-ball game.
Abrar did not disappoint, taking 57 wickets at 11.75 in six matches as Sindh topped the six-team table with five wins in ten matches.
"He exceeded my expectations," says Ghulam Ali. "His presence in the side made me very confident. When Sarfaraz Ahmed, who captained our 1st XI team, came to watch our matches I spoke to him about playing Abrar in the [main] Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. I used to send his bowling videos to Sarfaraz and Basit. I wanted him to be fast-tracked to the national side."
Abrar made his first-class debut that same season, 2020-21, though his limited impact - 16 wickets in five matches at almost 50 - underscored the need for growth.
"I worked with him on adjusting his lines and lengths according to the conditions and the footwork of the batter," says Ali. "We worked on his flight and field placements, as well. I took him to Saqlain Mushtaq. He had developed abrasions on his finger because of the longer spells. I knew Saqlain had faced similar issues. He used to carry medication for it and he recommended an ointment to Abrar."
The remedial work bore fruit in the 2022-23 season, when Abrar took the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy by storm. He picked up 11 wickets in his first game of the season on a green, seaming track against Southern Punjab and ended up with five five-fors in seven matches.
Pakistan were about to host England and New Zealand in December and January and the spin cupboard looked bare. Yasir Shah was past his prime and Shadab Khan was not a long-form option. Sajid Khan and Noman Ali had fallen down the pecking order. Abrar's timely form earned him that maiden Test call-up against England.
****
Despite a bright start to his Test career - 11 wickets in that debut Test and 38 in his first six - Abrar has faded a little in the longer format. Meanwhile, Pakistan have revived the careers of Noman and Sajid on some of the most spin-friendly home surfaces in their history.
Abrar has flourished with the white ball in hand, though. The uproar that followed his omission from a crucial Super Eight clash against England at the recent T20 World Cup underlined just how vital he has become. He'd had one poor game against India - only the sixth time he conceded over ten an over in 38 T20Is - and was dropped, as Pakistan panicked. They went with the experience of Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz and the idiosyncrasies of Usman Tariq to get the job done. But when Harry Brook chased down a middling target with a magnificent century, it underlined the gap between Abrar and those other spinners in the set-up.
The next match - Pakistan's last in the tournament - against Sri Lanka further underlined it. In a game where 419 runs were scored at 10.48 an over, Abrar's economy was 5.75 - the best across both sides. It included two overs bowled in the powerplay. His three wickets hobbled Sri Lanka's chase every time it threatened to take off. Everything about that spell confirmed the predominant first impressions people had of him - that he would thrive in the heat of white-ball cricket. And in that spell were also plenty of glimpses of the little boy who grew up bowling in the rough and tumble of Karachi's tape-ball circuit.
