One of the greatest fast bowlers in cricket history and definitely the best left-handed pacer ever, Pakistan’s Wasim Akram is celebrating his 53rd birthday today on June 3. He was born in 1966 in Lahore, Pakistan in a Punjabi Muslim family.
Akram was discovered by Javed Miandad and was later mentored by Imran Khan, who was Pakistan’s best fast bowler of the time. He made his Test debut against New Zealand in 1985 and picked 10 wickets in his second Test of the same series. He became the best fast bowler in the world after helping Pakistan win their only World Cup title in 1992 in Australia and New Zealand, picking three wickets in finals against England and was named Man of the Finals.
He had a fruitful career which came to an end in 2003 when he became the first bowler to pick 500 wickets in ODI cricket in World Cup of that year. Akram picked 414 ODI and 502 Test wickets in 356 and 104 matches respectively. He was also handy with the bat scoring 3717 ODI and 2898 Test runs with the highest Test score of 257*.
He was also the first bowler to take four hat-tricks in international cricket with two each in ODIs and Test matches. He popularized reverse swing and bowled toe-crushing yorkers at will with his whippy action and coming off a short run-up, bowling upto speeds of over 90 mph consistently.
As he celebrates his birthday today, Wasim Akram received wishes from his fellow cricketers on Twitter and here are some tweets.
