Zainab Abbas was born on 14 February 1988 in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. She is the daughter of Nasir Abbas, a former domestic cricketer who played for Faisalabad and Hafizabad, and Andleeb Abbas, a senior politician with the Pakistan Tehreek‑e‑Insaf (PTI) and former member of the National Assembly.

She studied in the UK, completing a degree in Marketing and Strategy at Warwick University after earlier education that included time at Aston University in Birmingham. Before entering media, she worked for two years at Dolce & Gabbana and ran her own makeup studio until 2015.

Her broadcasting career began after she successfully auditioned to host a World Cup show for Dunya News in 2015. She then anchored programmes for Ten Sports, Dunya News, and later became a lead presenter for the Pakistan Super League (PSL), ICC events, and Pakistan’s home and away series.

In July 2021, Abbas joined Sky Sports Cricket as part of the team for the inaugural season of The Hundred, becoming the first Pakistani female presenter to appear on the channel. She has since worked on Sky’s coverage of Pakistan white‑ball series and other cricket properties, building a reputation for confident, engaging hosting, alongside other pundits like Dinesh Karthik, Nasser Hussain, Stuart Broad, and Tammy Beaumont.

Abbas is married to Hamza Kardar, son of former Pakistani finance minister and State Bank governor Shahid Hafeez Kardar. The couple wed in November 2019 in Lahore and have two children: a son born in December 2021 and a second child born in January 2025.