Pakistan legend Wasim Akram picked the name of New Zealand great Martin Crowe as the batsman who faced him the best, tackling his reverse swing with an effective method, at a time when he had ravaged the records of best of international batsmen through his craft.
While commentating for Sky Sports on Day 1 of the second Test between England and Pakistan in Southampton, Wasim recalled New Zealand's 1990 tour of his country when, he said, the home team pacers would start getting the ball to reverse as early as "after five-six overs" and traumatize all of the visiting batsmen barring one.
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In a three-Test series where Waqar Younis took 29 wickets at 10.86, Wasim bagged 10 scalps at 16.20 in two games, missing the third due to injury, and the second-highest Kiwi run-maker, Ken Rutherford, averaged 31.16, Crowe held his own and made 244 runs at 61 per innings, including one hundred and a fifty.
"I think the ball used to get reverse after five-six overs, don’t ask me why,” Wasim said. "It was against New Zealand and Waqar got 30 [29] wickets in three Test matches and I got 16 [10] in two and got injured. Martin Crowe got two hundreds [one hundred].
"And 'I asked him after the series, ‘What’s your secret?’ He said, ‘I just try to play you on the front foot and I play for the in-swingers every time and the out-swingers automatically miss the edge'."
His coach at Lancashire during his time in county cricket, David Lloyd, says Wasim used to work on the art of reversing the ball even while in England.
“Wasim Akram used to look in the ball bag and just come out with the worst ball he could find, a real scruffy ball so he could practise reverse swing," Lloyd said during a Sky Sports Cricket 'Watchalong' in June this year.
"All the rest of the lads would say, ‘Look at these, we can’t bowl with these – we want some new balls,’ and Akram would look at the bag and bring one out and would just work on that skill of reverse swing," he added.
The left-arm seamer retired from the game in 2003, having taken 414 wickets at 23.62 in 104 Tests and 502 scalps at 23.52 in 356 ODIs.
