Player Profile
Saqib Mahmood is a fast bowler with immense talent. A two-time Test Match quick, on tour in the West Indies in March 2022, he has now played 38 times for England across all formats.
In late 2024, Mahmood signed a three-year white-ball only contract with Lancashire. Within that, there is the option for the 29-year-old to play red-ball cricket pending availability and selection.
But him concentrating on the shorter formats is largely down to managing his body following some injury issues.
For example, in 2022, he experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Less than two months after making his aforementioned Test Match debut in the Caribbean in March, he was ruled out for the rest of the year with a back stress fracture.
Mahmood only played one game for Lancashire in 2022, and unfortunately disappointment struck again two months into the 2023 campaign when he suffered a recurrence of the same injury.
But the Rochdale-raised speedster worked hard to get back to fitness, and he has played T20I and ODI cricket as recently as 2025.
Ahead of the 2026 summer, he toured the UAE with the England Lions, coached by Red Rose legend Andrew Flintoff.
Mahmood has taken 52 wickets across the formats at full international level, including six wickets on Test debut in Barbados.
He had returned an ODI player-of-the-series performance against Pakistan during the summer of 2021, claiming nine wickets in three matches with a best of 4-42.
Having graduated through Lancashire’s Academy to play for England Under 19s at the age of 17, Mahmood’s senior international debut came in a T20 clash against New Zealand in Wellington in November 2019 after a stellar season in county cricket.
In all cricket for Lancashire, he took 57 wickets in 28 appearances, with some stunning form in the early season Royal London Cup yielding notable returns of 6-37 and 5-14 in home victories over Northamptonshire and Leicestershire.
He remains one of only four Red Rose bowlers to have taken six wickets in a List A innings, while his five-for means his name appears twice in the 12 best bowling performances in the club’s history.
In 2019, Mahmood - he was born in Birmingham before moving to the North West as a youngster - finished the One-Day Cup campaign as its leading wicket-taker with 28 as the Red Rose reached the semi-finals.
That same season, he took the winning wicket which secured Lancashire promotion back to Division One of the County Championship - against Middlesex during the penultimate week of the summer.
Mahmood signed his first pro contract at Emirates Old Trafford ahead of 2015.
He was part of the Lancashire Under 17s side who won the Royal London One-Day Cup and shared the two-day Championship title with Surrey in 2014. He made his first-team debut in the T20 Blast in 2015, playing three times.
He made two further appearances in that competition in 2016, whilst also making his List A and County Championship debuts.
Mahmood prepared for 2017 by taking part in the ECB’s specialist fast bowling training camp in Potchefstroom, and he ended the year with the Lions in Australia.
He took 12 wickets in Championship cricket during 2017, with a best of 4-50 in the first innings of the season-ending win over Surrey at Old Trafford as Lancashire finished second in Division One.
He was the last man to dismiss the great Kumar Sangakkara in first-class cricket during that fixture.
Following his debut IT20 series in New Zealand in the winter of 2019, Mahmood made his ODI debut against South Africa in the early part of 2020 and helped Lancashire reach Finals Day later in the year.
He played Pakistan Super League cricket in late 2020 and in 2021 with Peshawar Zalmi, while he has also represented the Oval Invincibles since the start of the Hundred.
Mahmood has spent time with the BBC radio team and proved an engaging pundit.
For now, though, wickets and trophies with Lancashire and England are his priority.
Mahmood struck seven times in five Blast appearances in 2025 and will be confident of spearheading a title-tilt in the same competition this coming summer.