Former Pakistan bowling great Wasim Akram made his debut in 1984. By the time Akram was done with his career in 2003, he had ended up as the fifth-highest wicket-taker with 916 scalps to his name.
His tally of wickets is the third-highest for pacers and remains intact even after 17 years of his retirement from international cricket.
During his glorious career, Akram engaged in riveting duels with some of the greatest batsmen in his era, namely, Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara and Martin Crowe.
Now, the ‘Sultan of Swing’ has rated the best batsmen he has faced in his career, which lasted almost two decades.
“No doubt Sachin is one of the greatest of all time. My Indian fans sometimes get frustrated when I give them my reasons (of a different judgment). I played my first Test match against Sachin in 1989 then I played against him in 99. So I didn’t play Test cricket against him for 10 years so it is a bit difficult to judge him as a bowler but as a player, he is one of the greats of the game,” Akram told Tanveer Ahmed on his YouTube channel.
Then, the 1992 World Cup winner lavished praise for West Indies’ batting Mozart, Lara.
“Take Brian Lara for instance. He used to score against us with that high backlift. He was a very different batsman. I’ve played a lot against Lara,” he added.
While talking about Ponting, Akram suggested that he used to bowl well against him at the start of the Aussie’s career before he blossomed into one of the finest.
“I used to get Ricky Ponting out at the start of his career but he, later on, turned out to be one of the greats of the game,” the 54-year-old revealed.
“Why I like Marin Crowe is there was a series in which Crowe scored two centuries against us. So I asked him how did play us? He said ‘played both of you (Wasim and Waqar) on the front foot and for the inswing. The outside automatically used to go past the outside edge. Outswing will trouble you when you go to chase the ball,” Akram concluded while rating Crowe as the best.
