Shoaib Akhtar

Shoaib Akhtar is the quickest bowler in the World. He has bowled 2 deliveries at 100 mph and this is a world record. He is dangerous on dead pitches also, due to his capacity to bowl sharp bouncers, swinging deliveries, well disguised slow balls and fast yorkers.

Akhtar came into the limelight in a pre-World Cup series against India in 1999. He performed extremely well in Sharjah and the 1999 Cricket World Cup. During the Asian Test championship match at Kolkata in 1999, he claimed 8 wickets. In this match, Sachin Tendulkar was clean bowled by Akhtar on the very first ball he faced. His performance in the 2003 Cricket World Cup was not up to the mark and hence he was dropped from the Pakistan team. He was recalled into the side for the 2004 series against New Zealand. In 2005, while playing against England in a 3 Test home series, he became the highest wicket taker of the series with 17 wickets.

In the IPL, Akhtar was selected by Kolkata Knight Riders. In the first match of the 2008 season, he bowled 3 overs, conceded 11 runs and took 4 wickets and for this performance he was selected as the Man of the Match.

Akhtar’s career has been marred by controversies like verbal spats with Waqar Younis, abusing Paul Adams, ankle and knee injuries and drug scandals.

Career Highlights

Shoaib Akhtar has participated in 21 Twenty20 matches and in these has taken 25 wickets while conceding 517 runs in 432 balls. His bowling average has been 20.68 and bowling strike rate was 17.2.

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