[1] In August 2018, he was one of thirty-three players to be awarded a central contract for the 2018–19 season by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
He made a remarkable comeback in December 2024 against South Africa by picking up 7 wickets in his 1st test after a gap of three years, 6 of which coming from the 4th innings of the match, delivering an outstanding spell.
[9] Abbas was the leading wicket-taker for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited in the 2017–18 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, with 37 dismissals in seven matches.
[34][35] After his first 25 test match appearances, he was ranked only behind Imran Khan among the Pakistan quicks for having maintained an healthy bowling average with many scalps to his name.
[36] His bowling average stood out at 23.02 while having taken 90 wickets from those matches and to everyone's surprise, he was snubbed from the Pakistani team selection for future test series.
[38][39][40] In his first Test match back, he took a six-wicket haul, single-handedly pushing Pakistan close to a historic win.
[41] He finished the series with 10 wickets in total, ending as the joint top wicket-taker alongside South Africa's Marco Jansen.