Jun 04, 2013 Part four: Allan Donald on the most intimidating bowlers he has seen: Shoaib Akhtar, the speed demon
Produced by: Gokul Chakravarthy; Interviewer: Nagraj Gollapudi
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Nov 4, 2014 Part eleven: Erapalli Prasanna on an unassuming offspinner with a cricketing brain second to none
Oct 28, 2014 Part ten: Erapalli Prasanna on West Indian offspinner Lance Gibbs, whose bowling looked friendly but wasn't
Oct 21, 2014 Part nine: Erapalli Prasanna on a spinner whom even Sachin Tendulkar found hard to bat against
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Sep 6, 2014 Part three: Erapalli Prasanna on what made Muralitharan unique, apart from his unusual and deceptive action
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At his fastest, an absolute menace for sure, and frankly far more threatening than Lee. Tremendous to watch for anyone who likes bowlers to make even the best batsmen tremble in fear.
The only caveat is that he never really had the stamina for sustained spells of hostility that would have made him a true great of the game.
One of the unsung heroes of modern cricket, a true legend who is up there with all time greats of the game, although i am Indian i just loved watching him bowl,
i myself have played some state level cricket in India and during my early days i always tried to bowl like him with a sideways action and a long run up.
According to me Shoaib is way above Steyn leave alone Andersen( just dont go with the records books much) two premier fast bowlers of modern times.
Along with SHOAIB AKHTAR miss people like LEE, BOND, WAQAR and DONALD himself people who were fast with long run ups and at the same time skillful as well. Guess such breed has now gone extinct.
Hope to see sumone soon like them for the sake of Cricket.
Donald said that Shoaib bowled gilchrist in the 99 world cup of a yorker but that didnt happen. In the group game wasim akram bowled gilly and in the final saqlain got him out. Shoaib was just awesome and he kept the Pakistani tradition of tearaway quicks strong. He lived life to the fullest and had the best attitude to the game.
Most cricket fans would buy a match ticket (i certainly will) to watch Shoab Akthar bowl one over in full steam in any form of cricket....
1999 World Cup Shoaib Akhtar is biggest bowler. Shoaib Akhtar is first time played world cup and pakistan team reached Final.Geoff Allot only 1999 world cup top.Other series not play and no performance.
It is absolutely correct that he was the quickest and most menacing of the three but on the other hand he was the least crafty among the three as well, and tended to waste a lot of deliveries. He had the capability to achieve even greater heights but correctly said that his ego was so big that he would not reduce his run up or improve his fitness to maintain his pace and quality of bowling for longer spells. But perhaps all genuine pace bowlers ( except may be Malcom Marshall or Donald himself) be it Thomson, Holding, Bret Lee and Shoaib did not last that long to achieve the level of success of Hadlee or Lillee or McGrath or Walsh or Kapil Dev.
Simply pace at it's best the way he came running in was just nerve wrecking for any batsman, he was a tough opponent and he owned tendulker on the very first ball that he bowled at him the result was clean bowled
A genuine fast and aggressive bowler and he loved doing that, he showed the pavilion to tendulker 10 times out of 17 encounters that they had with each other in all formats of the game the bouncer which flatten lara in jamaica (not to degrade tendulker and lara) just to say he loved to compete against the best in business .
To know how mean a bowler is to face him, and yes I couldn't agree more on this fellow. But let me add something on Wes.Hall of West Indies. This demon walked almost walked from the other end to unleash his ( I think he jerked) misile at alomost 90 miles and there were no head gears then. And if you will ask Ijzaz Butt, the latter PCB chief, as to what happend to his face. He will tell you that facing Hall in a Lahore test ( I think i958), in trying to hook him he was carried off the field on the stretcher.
Then there is the beauty to speed, the invincible Ray Lindwall - a magaic of a run up, and then another latter much like him, Waqar Younis of Pakistan. Those were some good days of cricket even with all its faults. Sounds good!!!
Draft type.
Was an amazing fast bowler, him at full pace bowling with reverse swing was unplayable. Of particular note was i think his second to last game in the world cup against sri lanka he bowled a ball just after he got a wicket at approximately 162 km/hr and went un noticed by the commentators. Amazing.