Recently, ESPNCricinfo had shared some fantasy matchups between players who hadn’t played together in international cricket. It had 20 players of yesteryears and today’s time in their prime and matched up to see which contest would be the most mouthwatering.

It had Kohli v Warne, Anwar v Bumrah, Kane v Murali, Babar v McGrath, Sachin v Rashid, Pietersen v Rabada, Ponting v Archer, Lara v Wagner, De Villiers v Wasim and last but not the least, Smith v Akhtar.

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The most talked-about battle was Steve Smith v Shoaib Akhtar given the rich vein of form the Australian was with 774 runs in four Ashes 2019 Tests. However, he was tested equally by England’s Jofra Archer, who had knocked him down and had him miss a Test due to concussion.

It seems even former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar believed that he can knock down Smith with three grueling bouncers as Archer did.

Responding to Cricinfo’s tweet, Akhtar wrote, “Even today, 3 hurting bouncers and i can dismiss @stevesmith49 on the 4th ball. Lol.”

Unfortunately, this bragging didn’t go down too well with cricket lovers, as they reminded him of his average of 44 while bowling in Australia and many other reasons why Steve Smith is a different breed of batsman altogether.

Not only cricket fans, even the ICC decided to troll the former Pakistani speedster, who was the first one to break the 100 mph barrier officially. ICC used Michael Jordan’s meme to make fun of Akhtar’s claims.