Former Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram played his last international game almost 15 years ago but the ‘swing king’ can still cause a few problems for the current crop of batsmen. Akram, at the age of 51, showed the world that he can still make the ball swing away from or into the batsman. Pakistan batsman Shoaib Malik would agree to that, courtesy his recent encounter with the Pakistani legend.
The incident took place in the T-10 exhibition match between Malik’s Toofan XI against Akram’s Sultan XI. Akram opened the bowling attack. After Shan Masood’s wicket, Malik came to bat. Akram bowled his second over and Malik was on strike.
On the first ball, Malik was beaten outside the off-stump line. On the next ball, Akram lured Malik to play away from his body and edge the ball to the wicketkeeper. Surprisingly, the umpire first signalled wide and then changed his decision and gave Malik out. Akram was delighted with the wicket and his teammates came running towards him.
Here’s the video of the wicket –
Wasim Akram to Shoaib Malik today in Multan – first ball play and miss, 2nd ball out #Cricket pic.twitter.com/0JowCWusvF
— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) February 4, 2018
It was Akram’s team which emerged victorious in the exhibition match. Toofan XI could not post a huge score on the board. Akram bowled two overs and picked up a wicket, giving just 9 runs. In reply Sultan XI chased down the target in the final over with 4 balls to spare.
Akram is considered as one of the best all-rounders in the history of Pakistan cricket. He has a total of 916 wickets and 6,615 runs in international cricket. It’s a shame that we did not get to see Akram work his magic with the ball in T20 cricket. It would have been a sight to behold!
