Whither Pakistan, the land of the fast bowlers ?
April 21 2001
Kabir Mahmood
Fast bowlers define the beauty of cricket. There is no better sight than a young quick bowler hurling the cherry at express pace, and fewer better moments than when he thunders in and an anticipatory hush descends on the ground.
In the 70’s and 80’s, the West Indies was regarded as a factory of fast bowlers. Fast bowlers kept on coming from everywhere. There were times when the West Indians didn’t play a single spinner in their team. They had 5 batsmen, a wicket keeper and 5 of the world’s fastest bowlers in their team.
Gradually this fast bowling craze shifted to Pakistan. The most important factor in this regard were first the heroics of Imran Khan and later the two W’s, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
Fast bowling is an art and requires many skills, but perhaps the most devastating and fearsome aspect of a fast bowler is his ability to bowl at express pace.
The classic example to explain the importance of raw pace for a fast bowler is Waqar Younis. At his peak, Waqar was the fastest bowler in the world and surely among the fastest to have played the game. Waqar had perfected the art of reverse swing and used it to devastating effect during his early years. But due to various injuries, Waqar gradually lost his pace significantly and today is a shadow of his past. He is still a world class bowler on his day and remains a master of reverse swing bowling, but the crucial factor which is missing today is his ability to bowl at express pace. This clearly emphasizes how important raw pace is to complement reverse swing bowling to devastating effect.
Pakistan discovered a new pace sensation in the mid-nineties in Mohammad Zahid who made a spectacular entry to test cricket, bagging 11 wickets on debut. In a World Series match in Australia in 97, he beat the bat of Brian Lara 5 times in an over and dismissed him on the final ball of the over, to earn praise and admiration not only from the media and crowd, but from the master batsman himself. Lara conceded that he had been beaten by sheer pace and ranked Zahid as the fastest bowler he had faced. But again due to injuries and lack of attention from the PCB, this promising youngster disappeared off the scene.
Then came the arrival of Shoaib Akhtar, who made his mark during the Asian test championship match between Pakistan-India at Calcutta, where he silenced 100,000 crowd at Eden gardens when he uprooted the middle stumps of both Dravid and Tendulkar in successive deliveries, with lightning yorkers. This was the first time ever Sachin Tendulkar was out for a golden duck during his illustrious career.
During the 1999 World Cup in England, Shoaib was the main attraction and bowled consistently at high speed. He earned himself a reputation as the fastest bowler in the world with 150kph+ deliveries regularly, and by the end of the tournament he was nicknamed as the “Rawalpindi Express”.
However, Shoaib’s career ever since has been plagued by injuries and controversy surrounding his action. Nevertheless, the rumours in Pakistan were that we have a few more upcoming youngsters who could bowl as fast if not faster than Shoaib, the names of Mohammd Sami, Shabbir Ahmad, Fazle Akbar and even Kashif Raza were mentioned.
But in hindsight it seems this was all speculation and media hype, as out of the 4 only Mohammad Sami looks like a genuine talent. He has the ability to bowl in the high 80’s and occasionally 90 mph.
I’ve actually read an article in the Cricketer (Pakistan) magazine, which states that Fazle Akbar once bowled a first class delivery 164 kph during an U19 tour to South Africa !!! phew !!
(a world record !). But anyone who saw Fazle Akbar during the recent test series in New Zelanad, would find this an amusing joke. In fact, the closest comparison I could make with Fazle Akbar was the English medium pacer, Mark Ealham.
Nevertheless, I was shocked when I witnessed Kashif Raza during the current Sharjah Cup and he was a shadow of the promising young fast bowler I saw playing for Pakistan U19 a few years ago in England. I can confirm to you that he was bowling at 145+ kph consistently during that series and the commentators were drawing comparisons of his action and run up with none other than Waqar Younis. I would be interested to know what has happened to him, as it appears he has remodelled his action and clearly this has diminished his pace.
It is really disappointing to see that with the exception of Shoaib, we don’t have anyone else who is able to bowl at express pace and continue the trend of the tearaway fast bowlers in Pakistan cricket. Perhaps this is the reason the PCB are spending so much on Shoaib and regard him as a national asset, simply because the reserves are not up to scratch.
One thing is for sure, unless we discover a couple of young fast bowling stars in the upcoming season, it would be wise to persist with Wasim and Waqar because they are still class acts and to replace them with the likes of Fazle Akbar and Mohammad Akram would be a disaster.
Thank you, come again