'I have my doubts about Shoaib Malik'
Five years since he quit the game, Wasim Akram is as sharp with a provocative opinion as his bowling used to be in his heyday
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I would have enjoyed Twenty20. A couple of things: it would have suited my batting style, and of course, it would have suited my bowling too. Because you need a lot of varieties in Twenty20. Only yorkers and slower balls won't do. Nowadays you can bowl the slower bouncer...
It is quite difficult. You have to be very confident of yourself. You have to be accurate, otherwise you will probably get hit for six. You have to be brave.
We played on these pitches every time we played one-day cricket in Pakistan; I don't want to blame the wickets. We all played on these tracks only, and we managed.
For 50-over cricket, the ICC has to sit down, the cricketing brains have to sit down, and do something about the over numbers 20 to 40 - find out what they can do for the bowlers.
I haven't sat down. I am not playing, so I am hardly bothered. Had I been playing I would have come up with some solution, I suppose, eventually.
Coaching is a very different skill. You need patience, you need a lot of organisation. I don't have any. I can make a good consultant, I can fine-tune bowlers, give them mental toughness, talk about how to bowl under pressure, how to bowl with the old ball. But I can't make a good full-time coach.
Brett Lee, of course. He is the best bowler in the world right now. Ishant Sharma - but he has to learn quickly. He has been very average in the Asia Cup. His length has to change in one-day cricket. He is a wicket-taking bowler, he has to get the new ball. You can't have your third seamer bowling with the new ball.
The simple answer is: reverse swing. Either they don't practise with the old ball or they don't have confidence in it.
When the coaches come to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, they have meetings for two hours. They should know that the attention span in our part of the world is 14 minutes. If you get into the 15th minute, they will forget what you told them in the first 14 | |||
I am not giving that away so easily. Not in a freebie interview!
That much detail. Even if while throwing the ball from the outfield, if the rough side comes in touch with the grass, it will become soft. Sometimes bowlers used to stop the ball played back at them with their foot. If the boot spikes hit the rough side, it was Christmas. If it didn't, you shone the ball and moved on.
If I see an exceptionally good fast bowler, I would pick him right away. Batsmen probably need more time and experience to mature, but if bowlers have pace, swing, and they are physically and mentally strong, just back them and play them. I picked Aamer Nazir, Saqlain Mushtaq, I picked Shoaib Malik out of the blue in Sharjah 1997. I saw him play one game for PIA and I fought for him and he was on the touring team.
I would.
He is quite talented.
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We had a love-hate relationship when we were playing. We used to hate each other's guts at times. There was always competition on the field. If he was taking wickets, I wanted to take more. Not that he shouldn't take wickets, just that I should take more than him. In the end Pakistan benefited from that healthy competition.
It never happened with us. When we were at our peak, I don't think we ever faced such a situation. We could take on anyone and everyone.
It's a difficult question made even more difficult. The rules have been mended or bended or whatever, for the sake of I don't know who. The thing is simple: if somebody chucks, he chucks; if somebody doesn't chuck, he doesn't chuck. There shouldn't be any 15-degree rule. It's just making things complicated.
It does, it definitely does. I have tried, when I was playing, to chuck, but I couldn't. It's difficult to chuck - it's an art. But it does give an unfair advantage.
With any cricket team in the world, you pick the XI first, and then the captain. As simple as that.
Of course they do. Fourteen boys went to the Kitply Cup; they won the tournament, but two have been dropped. They didn't even play and are dropped. What they must be going through, I can only imagine.
Man management is very important. You can't just become a captain and have a group of your own. That's the worst thing you can do as a captain. In cricket teams you have to be friendly with everyone. I had Aamer Sohail, Waqar Younis, Javed Miandad, Ramiz Raja, Saleem Malik, Ijaz Ahmed - they were all different characters, they were all difficult, but they were all match-winners. I learned to listen to them and back them up when they were not doing well. I knew as a captain that when they came back to form they would win me a match.
The thing is simple: if somebody chucks, he chucks; if somebody doesn't chuck, he doesn't chuck. There shouldn't be any 15-degree rule. It's just making things complicated | |||
Of course, Imran was the best ever. He led from the front, with the bat, with the ball. Under pressure he went in at No. 3 in the 1992 World Cup. No other captain from India or Pakistan could ever have done it. I couldn't have done such a brave thing, because I'd think: what if I failed? He was never scared.
Politics is very much there. Infighting is less between the boys, but yes it is there. But if the cricket board is consistent, then we can talk. Today there is somebody running Pakistan, tomorrow there will be somebody else. With cricket boards, teams change, captains change, coaches change, team managements change. Everybody has to become a politician then.
A bowler-captain, in my book, is always a better captain. A keeper-captain, if he is exceptional, can be at par with a bowler-captain. Because you have to know the bowler's psyche. Some captains - I am not naming any - say that you have got a wicket with an inswinger; why don't you bowl a similar ball every time? If I could bowl every ball like that, then am I mad to not bowl it every ball?
You get used to that. It's just a habit. Initially you think, 'I have to think of my bowling, there is a match tomorrow, the team has to be selected, the coach has to be spoken to, players have to be spoken to, there's a team meeting, media has to be spoken to.' But you get used to it.
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Sunil Gavaskar. I only got him twice in one-day matches. I played four Tests against him - he never gave me his wicket. I remember bowling him reverse swing, round-the-wicket stuff, bouncers, in the Chennai Test of 1987, but he swayed away easily, seeing the ball into the keeper's gloves. And that was towards the end of his career.
Of course, Ian Botham in the 1992 World Cup final. He still doesn't admit he edged it. He is a very good friend of mine now, and he still says he didn't nick it. Allan Lamb in the same game was special too.
It was natural. Run-up I shortened in 1987 with the help of Imran. He helped me a lot. I had an angle too, but I thought I wasn't losing on pace, running in straight, so why run in from the side?
Imran Khan was there, what can a coach do? Is a coach mad to be speaking in front of Imran?
It has become a bit too complicated. Bowling coach, batting coach, fielding coach... At this level you don't need a coach. How will you coach [Mohammad] Yousuf? You can't correct his back-lift. You can just give him confidence.
Shoaib Malik has to learn. Rauf gets three wickets in one match, but doesn't get to play in the next. This is the captain's fault, not the selectors' | |||
Quite a few. The match-fixing allegations, losing the World Cup final in 1999. Losing wasn't so bad, but when we came back to Pakistan, I got called by the National Accountability Bureau. They kept me in Islamabad and questioned me day in and day out. Before that the prime minister, the chief minister of Punjab, used to call me every day. Suddenly, after we lost they all disappeared. And people started saying the match was fixed. It's hilarious that people can still think that the World Cup final was fixed. That much pride - the money comes afterwards - you can't feel anywhere else. There is no comparison. I eventually learned that the only way to answer it was with performances.
For a long time. Had I not gone through that stage I would have probably got 500 wickets in Test cricket [he ended with 414]. General Tauqir Zia asked me to retire in 2000 or they would drop me. I have been through a lot. Cricket has been through a lot.
Well, when I was on the field I shut it out. Just go, perform, enjoy the game, back the boys, enjoy their company. If you look at the records, we were the most successful side Pakistan ever had.
Sidharth Monga is a staff writer at Cricinfo