Pakistan left Noman Ali out of the England Tests, and Lancashire have signed him for six games
Pakistan dropped their most productive Test spinner of the last two years for the tour of England. He will be in the country for it anyway, bowling Division Two cricket at Old Trafford.
Aug 6, 2026
Lancashire have signed Noman Ali for the last six matches of their County Championship season, which drops a 39-year-old with 101 Test wickets into Division Two and puts him within reach of a Pakistan squad that decided in July it could manage without him.
The timing is the interesting part. Pakistan’s first Test against England starts at Headingley on 19 August. Noman is expected to make his Lancashire debut against Northamptonshire at Emirates Old Trafford on 20 August, one day later and one range of hills away. He was not picked for that series. He will spend it bowling in the same country, in the same conditions, waiting on a phone call that may never come.
The squad that left him out
Pakistan announced on 5 July that Shaheen Shah Afridi, Hasan Ali and Noman had all been left out of the Test squads for the West Indies tour and the England series. For Noman it was a hard call to read. Sajid Khan kept his place, and Ali Usman, the other left-arm spinner, came in and made the selection look reasonable almost immediately. Usman took 4 for 39 in the second innings at Port of Spain this week, six wickets in the match, as Pakistan won by eight wickets to level the series.
So the succession is under way, and Noman is on the wrong side of it at 39. What Lancashire have done is give him somewhere useful to be while it happens.
What Lancashire are getting
A bowler with a better record than most counties can buy in August. Noman has 101 wickets in 22 Tests at 25.08, with nine five-wicket hauls and three ten-wicket matches. His best figures, 8 for 46, came against England at Multan in October 2024, in a Test where he and Sajid Khan took all 20 wickets between them. No pair had done that in a Test for 52 years. Pakistan won by 152 runs. Across 135 first-class matches Noman has 497 wickets at 25.38.
He is a late developer by any measure. Pakistan capped him at 34, against South Africa in Karachi in January 2021, after a decade and a half in domestic cricket for Hyderabad and Khan Research Laboratories. The bulk of his value has arrived since 2024, when Pakistan started preparing dry, heavily spinning pitches at home and Noman and Sajid Khan became the whole attack. The pair took 70 wickets in four Tests over that stretch, 36 of them Noman’s.
In January 2025 he became the first Pakistan spinner to take a Test hat-trick, removing Justin Greaves, Tevin Imlach and Kevin Sinclair in three balls against West Indies at Multan. He was 38 at the time, which made him one of the oldest bowlers to manage it. Nine months later a ten-wicket haul against South Africa in Lahore took him to No. 2 in the ICC Test bowling rankings.
Seventh in Division Two
None of which guarantees anything in Manchester in late August. Lancashire sit seventh of eight in Division Two, two wins from eight matches, 68 points behind leaders Durham with six to play. They have lost four of their last five. The club’s own line is that promotion remains an outside chance if they can string wins together, which is a generous way of describing that position. Mark Chilton, their director of cricket, was direct about why they went for a 39-year-old finger spinner rather than a quick.
“His record speaks for itself with the red ball, particularly for Pakistan over the last couple of years, and we believe his experience and know-how will make a real difference to us in these final six Championship games,” Chilton said.
Noman reached for the obvious reference point. “I am following in the footsteps of a Pakistan hero, Wasim Akram, who played for Lancashire for many years,” he said.
The other reading of the deal is less romantic and probably more accurate. Pakistan will play three Tests in England between 19 August and 13 September with two frontline spinners, one of whom has two Test caps. If either breaks down, the man with 101 Test wickets is an hour up the road, bowling in English conditions, already acclimatised. Lancashire get a Test spinner for their promotion push. Pakistan get insurance they did not have to select.