Shoaib Akhtar, who has the world’s fastest delivery to his name by clocking 161.3 km/h against England during the 2003 World Cup, was capable of scaring even the most accomplished batsmen during his playing days, let alone the batters in county cricket.
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Recently, Akhtar narrated an incident when his express pace delivery hit a Glamorgan batsman Matthew Maynard and he thought that the latter is dead.
“In first class cricket when I played for English county Worcestershire, I hit quite a few batsmen. And then it seemed like ‘Oh God I have done something wrong’. I could never understand why I was so mean,” the Rawalpindi Express said during a conversation with Pakistani presenter Sawera Pasha on her Youtube show CricCast.
“One incident that I remember is with Matthew Maynard of Glamorgan. It was dull in the evening and the light was not great so I told him, ‘let’s go off because my pace is not comfortable to face at this time. So if you want we can go off’.
“But he said ‘let’s face you’. So I went around the wicket and bowled a fast bouncer. It wasn’t very dark but I felt it would be difficult to face my pace. The ball hit him on the face and he fell on the wickets. I thought ‘this guy is dead’.
“He fell on the wickets, got out and was in a lot of pain. So yeah, every time I hit someone I felt bad,” the former speedster further remarked.
In a career spanning over 163 ODIs, Shoaib Akhtar claimed 247 wickets at an impressive average of 24.97. He was lethal with the red ball too as he picked up 178 wickets at 25.69 from 46 Tests, including 12 five-wicket hauls.
