Happy Birthday Sultan of Swing

If we take a list of greatest fast bowlers in Cricketing history, there would be prominent names like Curtley Ambrose, Jeff Thompson, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee, Chaminda Vaas, Courtney Walsh, Andy Roberts, Waquar Younis, Imran Khan, Shoaib Akhtar, Glenn McGrath etc. You might think that I have missed a name. A prominent name. A player from Pakistan. Yes, I consciously missed the name, just to say that today, is his birthday. He is none other than Wasim Akram. 

He was born on June 3rd, 1956, at Lahore, Pakistan. He made his debut just at the age of 18, during 1984 for Pakistani national cricket team. He was introduced into the team as Left Arm Fast bowler, but due to his skills in batting department, he was made as all rounder, who would play at No.8 position regularly for Pakistan. 

A small analysis on his bowling skills. A tall, 6.3 foot left arm pace bowler, who has little run up but generates an immense speed in his delivery. Generally few bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah, Mark Wood, Simon Jones, Craig White etc generates a great amount of speed despite having a short run up. During an interview, he said that he used to concentrate more on swing. Also, even though he has a short run up, his arm action is very quick, making difficult for the batsmen to predict whether he is going to bowl outswinger or inswinger delivery. Also, he is great at bowling cutters. The idea of mastering pace bowling is that he focus more on swing, which automatically improves the pace bowling and his quick draw of left arm, creates more pace. A great thinking bowler. 

When we think of his batting skills, his natural game is just see the ball and hit the ball. Also, act according to the situation, whether to play attacking shots or to play strokes. He is more of runs than of his technical abilities and that's how a No.8 batsman would be having in his mind. A left handed batsman, who also saved many matches with his batting skills, but remained underrated in his batting as his bowling skills dominated the batting skills.

Also, he played role as a captain in 1999 Cricket World Cup, where he led his team to the final of the tournament. But, losing the final match, he lost his captaincy as during that period many players were caught for match fixing scandals. 

In batting he scored 16,000 International runs (both test and ODI) with an highest score of 257 in Test cricket. In bowling, he has took a combination of 916 wickets in his 19 year career, particularly in ODI cricket, he took 502 wickets, the second most in ODI career even till now. Also, he has the record for picking up most ODI Wickets(158) as a captain.

But his career ended in 2003, as during 2003 World Cup, even though he was the leading wicket taker for Pakistan, picking up 12 wickets in 6 games, the team failed to qualify for the Super 8 Stage. This resulted in sacking him from the Pakistani squad.

Right now, he has been the cricket commentator, and Pakistani cricket board Advisor. Also, he had coached many domestic teams as a bowling coach and consultant. In 2019, he received Hilal-e-Imtiaz for his lifetime achievements in the cricket field.