Former Pakistani speedster Shoaib Akhtar was widely known for his extreme pace and due to which he has been able to horrify batsmen from all the teams including many legendary players. He has met several outstanding batters in his cricketing career, but his battle with Indian players was always a treat to watch.
The ‘Rawalpindi Express’ has played against the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman and many more talented Indian batsmen but his clash with two leading run-scorers for India, i.e. Sachin and Dravid was something else and recently he was asked to name the toughest batsmen between the two in a chat session.
Unlike the expected answer, Akhtar went with ‘The Wall’. He stated that Dravid was more challenging to bowl as compared to Sachin.
“Dravid was more difficult to bowl than Sachin,” said Shoaib during an interactive session on Helo App.
In February 1999, Akhtar registered his name in the hearts of Indian cricket fans when he got both Dravid and Sachin out by producing unplayable yorkers at Eden Gardens. He first got Dravid on 24 and then sent Sachin back into the pavilion for a golden duck.
India’s iconic player Sachin finished his splendid 24-year-long career with 18,426 runs in ODIs and 15,921 runs in Test cricket. Dravid, on the other hand, ended up with 13,288 runs in the longest format of the game, and 10,889 runs in ODIs. The outstanding pair piled up a total of 148 international centuries together.
Akhtar also had a terrific career for Pakistan cricket. In 46 Tests, the right-armer claimed 178 scalps with 12 times he earned a five-wicket haul while ten times Akhtar accomplished a four-wicket haul. In ODIs, the former paceman grabbed 247 wickets in 163 games. For six times, Akhtar bagged a four-wicket haul in the 50-over format and four times he produced a five-wicket haul performance.
