It is an old column by irfan hussain about king of swing and we all know who that king was… i decided to share it with you guys…read it and enjoy it…
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20040214.htm
he king of swing
By Irfan Husain
AS the Pakistani cricket team prepares to take on arch-rivals India next month, what passes for our think-tank must be missing that one-man demolition squad, Wasim Akram.
Consider the man’s monumental achievements: having played 104 test matches, he took a phenomenal 414 wickets, averaging nearly 4 wickets per match. And although his batting declined towards the end of his illustrious career as he concentrated on his bowling, he still has three tons under his belt, including an unbeaten 257 against New Zealand.
His record in the shorter version of the game is equally impressive: after having played 356 one day internationals, he left the field with 502 scalps, a world record. His explosive, often match-winning batting brought him over 3,700 runs, and his missile-like returns from the boundary ran out many batsmen sure of making their ground.
Having achieved all this wearing Pakistan’s colours, it is ironic that his retirement came and went virtually unnoticed by the country’s cricket establishment. For a country that is so short of heroes, one would have expected Akram to be lionised by his fans as he finally hung up his boots.
But sadly, the ex-chairman of the cricket board, the hugely unpopular General Tauqir Zia, and his acolytes barely mentioned the exit of the ace all-rounder from the cricketing scene, leave alone garlanding him and paying tributes for his extraordinary services to the game and to his country.
While launching his new career as a cricket commentator, Akram was asked about the recent criticism of him over his helping young Indian fast bowlers on their current tour of Australia.
His detractors had questioned his loyalty in the columns of the Pakistani press as well as in a court of law. Akram replied quite rightly that as he no longer had anything to do with the Pakistani cricket establishment, he was not answerable to anybody.
In any case, he felt the game had given him a lot, and by passing on what he had learned over the years to the next generation, he was just repaying a debt to cricket. Dryly, he added that when he retired, nobody in the cricket establishment offered him ‘even a cup of tea’.
And that just about sums it up for the graceless society we are. Instead of giving him the accolades that are his due, a pack of pygmies began snapping at his heels. But he is no stranger to controversy: for years, he has been accused of indulging in match-fixing. Although he has been cleared of the offence by a judge who chaired an inquiry, some of the mud has stuck.
I have no way of knowing whether Akram ever threw any matches deliberately, but the temptation must be enormous, specially when one-day matches are played practically back-to-back all round the year.
There must come a time when some of them must seem meaningless, specially when a team has qualified for the final. I have no evidence, but the match Pakistan lost against Bangladesh in the World Cup played in the UK six years ago smacked of a fix. However, Pakistan was sure of qualifying for the later round, and the odds were 30-1… I am still kicking myself for not laying a tenner on Bangladesh.
But anybody who has seen the look of pure joy on Akam’s face when he reverse swung a yorker to dislodge the middle stump can be sure that he put all the guile and skill he had accumulated over the years into that lethal delivery.
Or if you saw the disappointment on his face when a vociferous appeal was turned down for what seemed like a plumb leg before wicket decision, you could be sure Akram was giving everything he had to win the game.
For me, the one thing that characterized his approach to cricket was passion: from his short, loping run-up to the explosive jump at the moment of delivery, he put a 100 per cent into his deadly craft of left-arm swing bowling. Years ago, in a Test match against Sri Lanka in Sialkot, I saw him hand down a lesson in viciously hostile bowling to a succession of cowed batsmen.
As they ducked and weaved to evade the rising ball coming to the jugular or the ribcage, many of them were bruised and battered by the time they gratefully made their way back to the dressing room. I don’t think they managed many more than a hundred runs between them in that inning.
It was his refusal to quit that set him apart from so many of his contemporaries: even when the opposition were in an impregnable position, Akram’s shoulders seldom drooped.
Whenever he came to bowl, he would do so with venom and fire. Although his hostility could be occasionally expensive, he seemed to hate bowling simply to contain the batsmen.
For him, the point of bowling was to take wickets, and as his record testifies, he was a past master at the art of sending wickets cart-wheeling.
It was a familiar sight for his fans watching him on TV to see Akram slant two or three balls across a right-handed batsman, and then out of the blue, bring one sharply back in, trapping the hapless batsman plumb LBW. Indeed, his phenomenal accuracy was probably his greatest weapon.
Many world class batsmen who struggled against him over the years have said he was the most difficult bowler they ever faced in terms of the variation of speed, angle and swing he brought to bear.
Having been at the forefront of world cricket for so many years, one would have hoped that his experience would have been better used to sharpen the skills of aspiring test cricketers. But alas, our politics-prone cricket establishment has preferred to use the services of more biddable retired players.
Indeed, the Indians have had no reservations in asking Akram to help their young bowlers unofficially.
Although Inzimamul Haq, the Pakistan captain, has recently asked for Waseem Akram and Imran Khan, that other all-time great all-rounder, to help coach his team’s young pace bowlers, the cricket board has been silent on the subject.
Considering that Akram has been watching the Indian team closely in Australia for over two months recently, he is well placed to advise our players on the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. And having coached the Indian left-arm fast bowlers, he can tell our batsmen how best to play them.
Asking one of the greatest cricketers Pakistan has produced to help our team is such an obvious thing that one is amazed the cricket board has not already done so.
