Wisden Cricket Monthly columnist Kumar Sangakkara continues his series on the greatest players of his era. Here he recalls the magus-like craft and ferocity of the peerless Lahore southpaw, Wasim Akram.
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My first experience of watching Wasim Akram bowling live was in 1994, when I was in my final year in school. It was at the Asgiriya Stadium – where I was lucky enough to play my school cricket and some of my Test cricket – and for some unexplained reason the curator left a very sporting amount of grass on the wicket, which was very much to the liking of the Pakistani opening pair of Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram. So much so that speaking to Kumar Dharmesena – who played in that game and is now a Test umpire – many years later, he recounts going up to inspect the pitch and coming across Waqar tossing the ball up smiling, looking down at the pitch, and casually asking, “Kumar, do you like watching murder films?”.
No sooner had the match started than Sri Lanka were bowled out for 71. Pakistan went on to amass a very large first-innings total, and then bowled us out again inside three days, which was unfortunate because if our batting had held out on that third day we would have drawn the Test match; as it usually does in Kandy, it started raining and rained continuously for the next two-and-a-half days, so we missed drawing the match by an hour.
It enabled Wasim to come back the next day and exploit the conditions of the SSC to take five wickets. And then in the second Test of that particular series Wasim again showed what he could do with the bat, this time scoring a very fast hundred. There were many instances later on in his career where Wasim became a very influential all-round player for Pakistan.
A lot of people say, ‘When the ball is reverse swinging of course the fast bowlers are able to dominate’. But I’ve seen many a reverse swinging ball not being used at all properly by many a fast bowler and the way Wasim, Waqar and Chaminda Vaas later on in Sri Lanka used that reverse swinging ball showed that you needed to have a high proficiency and skill to use it with any amount of success.
I think Pakistan cricket and world cricket owes Wasim a huge amount. He’s much loved wherever he goes, and I will always remember Wasim for being a true magician with the ball in hand.
