Legendary Pakistani pacer Shoaib Akhtar, who has 444 wickets to his name across three formats, has had a remarkable career. However, the coveted ICC ODI World Cup, which every cricketer desires, was something he could not get his hands on.
Akhtar, who came extremely close to winning the trophy in 1999, when Pakistan was decimated by Australia in the finals at Lord's, revealed that the experience still gives him nightmares.
Pakistan, who was positioned in Group B, had only lost one game in the tournament's first stage, to Bangladesh. They had, however, finished first in the table and qualified for the Super Six stage.
Pakistan then went on to win three of their five matches in the second stage of the competition and got themselves positioned on top of the table. One of the games Pakistan lost was to arch-rivals India in Manchester.
Despite the fact that Australia had an identical result, Pakistan topped the table due to a higher run rate.
Pakistan then defeated New Zealand in the semi-final by nine wickets, where Shoaib Akhtar bagged 3 wickets. However, in the final, Pakistan was bowled out for 132 runs batting first and lost the final to Australia by 8 wickets.
In an interview with Sportskeeda, Akhtar said, "That bitter memory is still with me till date. It gives me nightmares. I still believe my inner core is left at Lord's. Every time I went to Lord's, I was never happy. Because I knew we lost the final here, we could have taken the victory lap. Some of me is left there, for good. I love that ground, the people, the atmosphere, but a painful part of my body is still standing there."
With a team that had the likes of Wasim Akram, Azhar Mahmood, Abdul Razzaq, and Saqlain Mushtaq, Akhtar feels Pakistan had the finest team in the 1999 World Cup event.
"We had cruised through to the final of the 1999 World Cup. No disrespect to anyone, but when you compare talent to talent, Pakistan was way ahead of anyone else. We had dominated the opposition except in the two games that we lost. One we lost to India and the other we lost in the final," said Akhtar.
(Sportskeeda inputs)
