Pace bowler labeled 'terrorist' on social media
Photo: Collected
||Desk Report||
Uncapped Saqib Mahmood, 22, has been called up to England's Test and Twenty20 squads for New Zealand in November.
Unable to obtain a visa for the January tour because of his Pakistani heritage, he received abuse on social media.
"All of a sudden I was being called a terrorist and I had not done anything wrong," Mahmood told the BBC's Stumped.
"People thought I was plotting something when I was going on a cricket tour. I was getting called not a lot of nice things, hence why I tried to forget about it all."
On receiving the call, Mahmood said: "I knew the squad was being announced at two so all morning I was literally just staring at my phone waiting for it to ring.
"I ended up getting the call at twenty to two just as I thought the call was not coming. It was a great feeling - it was almost a too-good-to-be-true feeling.
He added his mind "went blank" when England selector Ed Smith gave him the news - so much so that he was unable to take anything else in.
"He told me I was in both squads and it was such a weird feeling," added Mahmood, whose heroes include former Australia fast bowler Brett Lee, former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar and England's leading Test wicket-taker James Anderson.
"At the end he asked me if I had any questions and I did not want to tell him that I had not heard a thing he said."
