Pakistan have a new superstar and worldwide sensation in the making in Mohammad Abbas, and the paceman has achieved a feat that no one else could match in last one century.
In the recently concluded two-match Test series against mighty Australia in the UAE, Abbas finished with an astonishing average figure of 10.58, which is by far the best for any Pakistan bowler in a series with 15 or more wickets.
With his 17-wicket tally and the extraordinary average, Abbas quite comfortably beat the previous best record of 10.76 in Sri Lanka in 2006 by Mohammad Asif.
And to add to that, Abbas’ numbers are not just the best within his own country, but this is also the versus Australia in the last 100 years.
The career average of Abbas is also just 15.64, the best for any bower with 50-plus wickets in the last 100 years and fourth-best overall.
Abbas followed his 5-33 in the first innings with figures of 5-62 to wreck Australia for 164 in the second innings, and hence completed the 10-wicket haul at expense of just 95 runs.
With this, Abbas became the first fast bowler to take a ten-wicket haul in a in UAE Test. Junaid Khan’s 8 for 151 versus Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi in December 2013 was the previous best. Since then, Abbas is the first fast bowler as well for Pakistan to take 10 wickets in a Test match. Overall, Abbas is the fifth Pakistan fast bowlers to take a ten-wicket haul in Tests against Australia. However, he is the first since Wasim Akram’s 11 for 160 at MCG in 1990. Fazal Mahmood, Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz are the others to have achieved this.
Abbas’ 10 for 95 is the cheapest ten-for by any fast bowler against Australia since Fred Trueman’s 11 for 88 at Headingley in Ashes 1961.
