Akhtar - The Fast and Furious

Generally, Pakistani seam bowlers are so popular, and also are the greatest ones to create impact in cricketing fraternity. Whatever generation bowlers, Pakistan produces quality fast bowlers and they develop more on them. One such greatest legendary Pakistani Fast bowler of all time is Shoaib Akhtar. He is so quick and many batsmen, would be fearing to face him, as no one can predict that at which pace he is going to bowl. In our modern era, the value of seam bowlers aren't so high when compared a time during 1990s to early 2000s. Those were so pathetic time for batsmen, as it was an era of bowlers, who were so deadly and brutal. But, there were record for scoring hundreds, fastest ones, many sixes but in terms of bowlers, it is purely based on number of wickets. But, more than wickets there are some other factors which everyone fails to notice in the bowlers' point of view. One such thing is fastest delivery bowled ever by a pace bowler. 

On April 2002, Pakistan plays their home series against New Zealand. In that during 3rd ODI, which was held on this day during 2002 April, at Lahore, Pakistan scored 278/5 at the end of 50 overs. New Zealand, in reply, were struggling to score and kept losing wickets. On that day, Craig McMillan was on strike, and the bowler bowling to him is Shoaib Akhtar. He bowled a quick delivery, which Craig McMillan defended himself. It was the fastest delivery bowled, breaking the 100mph mark. He became the first bowler to bowl a ball, at a speed more than 100mph ( 161.3kmph) in cricketing history. But ICC refused to sanction it as the fastest delivery, as there weren't propoer measuring tool for checking speed, and the record was again held be Jeff Thomson, of Australia, who bowled at 99.8mph speed, although that did not take place during a match.

But, from then, I personally think, only from 2003 Cricket World Cup, the speed measuring tools were introduced and from then many including Shoaib Akhtar broke the record of fastest delivery, and some of the prominent names in the list are Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, Shoaib Akhtar himself, Wasim Akram etc. But, for bowlers, during this era, is as poor, as they were struggling to bowl even at 145 to 150 kmph, showing us the power of changing time and also the flexibilities made in the rules for batsman by International Cricket Council ( ICC ). But, if they had that proper measuring tool, it would have been a record created before. Still the record is created and broken, in the following years. 

Even if we look into highlights, it shows us more of batsman than the side of bowlers, which when we think of their side, they game has changed quite a lot. It had became batsmen's game more than that of bowlers' one. Let us hope that following years will again bring back the era created by the bowlers and more competitive cricket would grow bigger.