Saqib Mahmood will play his first County Championship game since May 2023 for Lancashire this week (May 10-13), having spent an extended time on the sidelines with a stress fracture.

The right-arm quick is one of a number of young England seamers who have struggled with injuries in the early part of their career. Mahmood made his white-ball international debut in 2019 in a T20I in New Zealand, with his ODI debut coming the following February against South Africa. He was given a pace development contract by the ECB in 2020 and made his Test debut in 2022 in the West Indies. He played the second and third matches in the series and took six wickets in total.

Following his Test debut, he was ruled out of action for the whole of the 2022 summer after he was diagnosed with a lumbar stress fracture. He made his competitive return for the England Lions in early 2023, taking 3-27 in an ODI against Sri Lanka A. Mahmood played two County Championship matches and two Blast games for Lancashire in 2023 before he was once again ruled out of action. He was diagnosed with a recurrence of his stress fracture which put him out of competitive action for the following 12 months.

Mahmood revealed earlier this year that he had considered taking a break from first-class cricket following his second back fracture. “It’s quite overwhelming to think that two years of my career have just sort of gone. I don’t want to have a third year like that,” he said. “Initially I didn’t want to play any red ball cricket at the start of this season. At the back end of last summer I had a chat to the guys here because I was nervous about my body.”

Mahmood will line up for Lancashire against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge this week, with Lancashire electing to bat first on Day One.

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