'Just bowl, mate': Waqar slams Shoaib

Waqar Younis, the former Pakistan captain, has publicly criticised Shoaib Akhtar's bowling performances in the NatWest Challenge.

Pakistan failed the challenge 2-1, and Shoaib, who missed the first match while serving a ban for ball-tampering, returned figures of 2 for 69 and 0 for 40 in the last two matches - both of which Pakistan lost.

According to a report in The Independent, Waqar didn't mince his words, coming up with a stinging attack on Shoaib. "It's ridiculous Shoaib coming out in the papers saying he's going to do this or do that. He's been doing it for a few years now and he never lives up to it and it looks pretty ugly. He performs to his ability once a year - and then he has the nerve to compare himself with Glenn McGrath. He was saying last week that if he'd been born Australian, he'd have taken more wickets. It might have been better for Pakistan if he had been born in Australia.

"I've always helped Shoaib and tried to make him a better bowler, but I don't know what's wrong with him. Pace isn't everything. What's the point doing 100mph if you can't put the ball in the right place?

"Shoaib thinks he knows it all already - but in cricket you're always learning. I'm still learning after all these years. Shoaib is a good bowler. I wanted him in the World Cup squad. But he just doesn't do what he says. He bigs himself up beyond what he's capable of. He likes to be in the papers and be flash - but he just doesn't deliver on the field. Look at Friday [the second ODI against England, at The Oval]: it was painful to see the way Pakistan played. It was painful to see the way he was bowling.

"Fair enough, you fight and you lose. But he's always saying, 'I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that.' Just bowl, mate. Just stop talking and bowl." Waqar was responding to an interview where Shoaib attributed Pakistan's dismal performance in the World Cup to the fact that Waqar and Wasim Akram were "declining forces".

To be fair, Shoaib bowled much better in the last match at Lord's, but with little luck, something which coach Javed Miandad pointed out in his defence. "He knew he had bowled badly in the second game and he came with me to Lord's on Saturday voluntarily and bowled for one-and-a-half-hours - it was a different bowler yesterday to the last game."

"The past is past," added Javed. "Everybody has seen here that his behaviour was excellent. He looked like a team man, he was encouraging all the youngsters, he was fighting and trying his best."

While Waqar plays out the rest of the English season with Warwickshire, Shoaib has promised to work wonders for his new county Durham. While Warwickshire are in Division One for both the Championship and National League, Durham are in Division Two for both formats, so it's probably just as well that they won't clash.