LAHORE – Pakistan‘s greatest-ever cricketer Wasim Akram is celebrating his 52nd birthday today (Sunday).
Born June 3, 1966 in Lahore, the ‘Sultan of Swing’ claimed 916 wickets during a 19-year international career.
Akram is currently in England as part of the Sky Sports broadcasting team and commentating on the second and final Test between England and Pakistan at Headingley.
Here are some of the happy birthday messages that have come in for the 1992 World Cup-winning hero.
https://twitter.com/cricketworldcup/status/1003124112863133697
https://twitter.com/TheRealPCB/status/1003108258641375234
https://twitter.com/ProfDeano/status/1003148844102631424
https://twitter.com/rummanraees15/status/1003176199311581184
https://twitter.com/HomeOfCricket/status/1003201875238252544
Akram was born in a Muslim Gujjar family in Lahore and studied at Government Islamia College Civil Lines in the same city. During his college days, he played as an opening bowler and a lower-middle order batsman.
His all-round skills soon caught the attention of the selectors in Pakistan and like those days, he came into the side at the cost of a senior player. In his case, it was the great Imran Khan.
The southpaw made his ODI debut against New Zealand on November 23, 1984 in Faisalabad. It was a rain-truncated match and he opened the bowling giving away 30 runs from his four overs. Pakistan won the match by five wickets.
Akram had a 18-year-long career and finished with 414 Test wickets and 502 in ODIs.
He went on to make his Test debut in the reverse series against the Black Caps on January 25 in Auckland. The match was a disaster for his side as they went down by an innings and 99 runs. Akram got two wickets but gave away 105 runs from 34.4 overs.
But his fortunes turned around in the second Test match, when he took 10 wickets. He took five wickets each in the Dunedin Test but despite his heroics, Pakistan lost by two wickets. But, that changed the game for him and he never looked back.
His career-best in Test and ODIs were 7/119 and 5/15 respectively. Not only that, he also has 25 five-wicket hauls in Tests and five 10 wicket hauls as well.
Akram also won the World Cup in 1992 and was the only Pakistani cricketer to be named in an all-time Test World XI to mark the 150th anniversary of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. He also holds the world record of most wickets in List A cricket with 881 scalps and is only second to Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan in the list of most ODI wickets.
Akram retired from Tests in 2002 and in ODIs in the following year and has worked as a coach and consultant around the world including the Indian Premier League.
He was with the Kolkata Knight Riders for quite a few years before leaving the post of bowling coach due to personal reasons.
