Pakistani Legend Wasim Akram

There has never been a greater Left hand bowler in the history of world cricket let alone Pakistani cricket than Wasim Akram. Wasim Akram alongwith his partner Waqar Younis were known as the Sultan's of swing. Wasim Akram could swing the ball both ways that is inswing, outswing and was expert in late swing also which is known as reverse swing making him a lethal pace bowler. Wasim Akram could not only swing the ball , he used to swing the ball at extremely high speeds. Alongwith his bowling partner at the other end Waqar Younis , Wasim Akram also used to bowl toe crushing lethal yorkers just like Waqar Younis. Both Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis learnt the art of reverse swing from their captain and maestro the great all rounder Imran Khan.

Wasim Akram with 502 ODI wickets is the second highest wicket taker in ODI cricket behind the retired Sri Lankan off spinner Mutaiha Muralitharan who has above 800 wickets in ODI cricket. Wasim Akram has got a lot of variety in his bowling. He can not only bowl at extreme pace but also has a very good slower ball showing variety in his bowling. He alongwith Waqar Younis bowled Pakistan to a lot of memorable victories. During Wasim-Waqar era Pakistan used to defend meagre and very low totals. They used to defend totals set by the inept Pakistani batting at that time which Pakistan were sure to lose but only Wasim-Waqar in those days were capable of defending such totals. Wasim Akram was known to get the top order batsmen out regularly while Waqar Younis was known to get the lower order and tailenders out regularly.

Wasim Akram was Pakistan's main strike bowler in the 1992 World Cup with 19 wickets. His clean bowling of Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis in the 1992 World Cup Final of consecutive deliveries which swung a mile is very memorable indeed.

Wasim Akram also led Pakistan to quite a lot of memorable victories as captain, particularly the Carlton and United Series in 1996/1997, The Asian test Championship in 1999 and to the 1999 World Cup Final only to lose to a rampaging Australian team in the 1999 World Cup Final.

After the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, after Pakistan's disastrous campaign where they lost all their matches against good opposition in the league matches and won only against minnows Holland and Namibia, Wasim Akram the great Pakistani paceman retired from all forms of international cricket.