*Wasim Akram* :: The best fast bowler ever!?. Review on Wasim Akram

It is time to post my 101st review, after a short break from last week when I posted my 100th review that talked on cricket in general!

Here is the player I was most fascinated with in the 80s & of course in the 90s too. Came in the team in 1984 I think when Javed Miandad saw him bowling in the nets. Before that he had played just on the hard Tennis ball. He was soon picked up in the national team.

He demonstrated very good medium-fast to fast bowling abilities with a highly unusual action which generated pace from the arm-action & not with a jump as conventional fast bowling goes. His best weapon being the Yorker, he got many wickets in Tests on this delivery let alone the ODIs.

But as Sunil Gavaskar wrote once in his article & also in One Day Wonders, it was Great Imran Khan who took Akram under his wings & developed a 100% FAST Bowler. He made him work out to get strength in shoulders.

Sunil Gavaskar shared a memory: When he first played Akram he was quite a frugal bowler but after Imran took over, the first ball he faced from Akram was quite faster & raised to chest height, kept going up & keeper collected it over his head! He looked at Imran in covers & Imran was smiling at Gavaskar acknowledging the fact noticed by other great! Great Stuff..when two keen observers of the game are on the field.

According to me he is the best left arm fast bowler ever played & also the second best fast bowler of all times after Dennis Lillee. He has taken hat trick on both the forms on the game & at times in two successive tests! I think he must have taken 2 consecutive wickets also the most number of times. Also, many times I see one more batsman being dismissed by Akram in the same over. He perfectly knows how to bowl to a new batsman.

His other weapon is the ball bowled left-arm-over pitches on middle--leg & moves either way! Many times he has got batsman out caught behind or LBW by his ability to move ball in either direction slightly just enough to get batsman confused. He was also the master when it came to make batsman go on the backfoot..The way he & Waqar used to finish off the tail was a textbook & their own invention sort.

One bouncer followed by a good length ball, then one more bouncer with a Yorker! This pair never let any 'useful' players contribute with the bat..you have to be a specialist batsman in order to defend/attack against them.

What amazed me the most is his Run Up! So simple with a select few steps with a hidden seam out of sight of the batsman (when reverse swing). a very quick bowling arm-action without a jump, a lil bit of shoulder when to put a bouncer. Common wisdom tells that you got to have some jump to extract bounce off the pitch: Proved Wrong by Akram! Like Ambrose his swing was often 'just enough' to get batsman out but he could swing/move it a lot when he wanted.

I remember his performance in the 91 world cup, initialy he suffered bowling over the wicket as he couldn't control the white-ball's swing (same with Alan Donald in the same World-Cup). He was bowling many wides out side of leg stump & also at times out side of off. By semi-final Imran asked/forced him to go around-the-wickets in the second spell, boy o boy, he caught Ken Rutherford LBW on a no-ball..! David Shepherd was laughing! Akram scratched his head in disbelief. But then he got many new Zealand batsman in trouble.

The real impact of his around the wicket came in the finals. He got Botham caught behind, then in the second spell when Lamb & Fairbrother were set, he was brought by Imran in the second spell, he got Lamb clean bowled on a ball that pitched just inside the off stump & moved a precious little to take his off-stump..amazing pace & the cruel accuracy! Lamb couldn't believe it!!

The Master-Stroke came in on the very next ball when a 'useful' player Chris Lewis came in, Akram pitched the ball almost an a Wide line, at the end of the crease!! ---> The ball came-in--it kept coming in at a rapid pace & within 0.3 seconds it took middle-off stump's bells!!! I was awestruck with that delivery that too in a world-cup final at a very crucial stage. With-in two balls England's hopes where completely shattered. Akram that day had also scored 35 runs out of 17 balls!! (Named man of the match of course).

The Chris Lewis bowled was according to me the best delivery ever bowled by a fast bowler. (Warne's deliveries are great but they are over hyped as they went thru the legs on to the stumps..but here a batsman was shattered into pieces in front his eyes!)

I also saw his one over against WI in an ODI (in 2002?) when he was about to go out for an injury, he got 3 players out in that over, two by a specially employed fielders at short-fine leg by a bouncing delivery, almost got one more (Lara) LBW but umpire didn't give him. Bowled 3 no balls in the process. A Very long over for WI! :)

His special skill along with Waqar was the reverse swing. Pakistan bowlers have given this delivery to cricket & now every country is using it! It was an amazing sight to see Akram/Waqar put swinging yorkers called 'toe-crushers'. Akram hit Lara too on the toes in 91 World-Cup (in his 90s though, broke his fingers) It is because of this ability they were as dangerous on an old ball as on the new ball.

The fact that he played cricket for almost 10 years with diabetes is also worth noting. His captainship skills were above average but couldn't fill in Imran's place. He also had sour relationship with Waqar & there were quite a few controversies. The match-fixing also had 'something' to do with Akram in at least India-Pak match in 99 World-Cup. This was 100% fixed game where Prasad got 5 wickets & Salim Malik tried to get LBW at least 4 times before getting actually out! (Very easy to spot).

He didn't do much justice to his batting abilities but have played many supersonic shots & innings in his career both in ODIs & tests. (He once hit Chetan Sharma 4 sixes in a row! Scored 48 runs in 14 balls that day. Due to shortage of time the match was made of 48 overs!) He could have turned into a complete all rounder like Imran Khan with a little more effort on batting; after all Imran was not a natural batsman like Kapil but an achiever with hard-work.

Akram today has settled in the role of commentator & is doing the same kind of service that Imran did to youngsters. Irfan Pathan & Ashish Nehra did get tips & direction from him from time to time. He is a true sportsman & never thought of religion--origin while giving advice & helping players. Umda-personality. (His wife is a psychiatrist!!, might have helped him?)

Hats off to the GREAT!!. Do checkout his stats in the first comment & also sound-off your opinion on this review & also on Akram.