Pakistani Cricket Players Biography Wallpapers : Waseem Akram

Waseem Akram Biography

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Wasim Akram, byname King of Swings (born June 3, 1966, Lahore, Pakistan), Pakistani cricket player generally regarded as the greatest left-handed bowler of all time, arguably among the very best fast bowlers ever, and an outstanding all-rounder, who helped lead Pakistan to the World Cup championship of one-day international (ODI) cricket in 1992.
Akram was born into an upper-middle-class family and was brought up in the comfortable suburb of Modeltown. His father was a successful businessman, and Akram was sent to the Cathedral School in Lahore, where his main sporting obsession was table tennis. From age 10 he lived with his grandparents, and his grandfather, a passionate cricket follower, introduced Akram to the sport. He studied fine arts at Islamia College, Lahore, but his success in local club cricket brought him to the attention of the state selectors and the international side. He made his first-class, ODI, and Test debuts within the space of three months at the turn of the 1984–85 season as a teenager, and, barring periods of injury or political upheaval, was thereafter a regular member of the Pakistan side, which he captained frequently before his retirement in 2003. Polite and eloquent, Akram was a great favourite in all parts of the world, most notably in England, where he produced several devastating performances with both bat and ball for his county, Lancashire.
Although his staccato run-up and hurried delivery stride betrayed the lack of proper coaching early in his career, his batting, always aggressive and often destructive (most notably during a 257-run performance against Zimbabwe in 1996–97), put him firmly into the all-rounder class occupied by such greats as his Pakistani mentor Imran Khan, Ian Botham of England, and Sir Richard Hadlee of New Zealand. As a bowler, Akram was capable of moving the ball late both in the air and off the pitch with subtle changes of pace, and he had one of the most varied arsenals in cricket history, with inswing, outswing, yorkers, and bouncers being just some of the weapons at his disposal. He and Pakistani teammate Waqar Younis developed such overwhelming command of their revolutionary use of reverse swing that it prompted allegations of ball-tampering.
In the 1998–99 season Akram captained Pakistan to the final of the Cricket World Cup, but inexperience emerged in their defeat by Australia. Also that season Pakistani cricket was dominated by allegations of match fixing. Akram was implicated but never charged, and he was officially cleared in September 1999. At the end of his career he had taken 414 wickets in Test cricket and 502 in ODI. Following retirement from the game, he became a cricket commentator for ESPN STAR Sports.Since retiring from cricket, Akram has worked and taken up commentary for television networks and can currently be seen as a sports commentator for ESPN Star Sports and ARY Digital among others. He did commentary on a variety of sporting tournaments including the 2009 Women's Cricket World Cup in Australia, the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 in England, the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa, and the 2011 ICC World Cup in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

In 2010, Akram was appointed the bowling coach consultant of Kolkata Knight Riders, the Indian Premier League team for Kolkata. Sourav Ganguly was always keen to have Akram as the bowling coach for India, during the former's stint as Indian captain. Although this never happened, his dreams were realised to some extent, when Akram was appointed as the bowling coach for the franchise. While working for the Kolkata Knight Riders, he was also responsible for the signing of Pakistani domestic left-arm fast-bowler Mohammad Irfan. Akram has also been coaching in Pakistan fast bowling camps, his most notable discovery being the teenage Pakistani bowler Muhammad Amir.

During his professional career he bowled with genuine speed and hostility. Akram was a man possessed of accurate control of line and length, accompanied by seam and swing bowling skills, extended to both inswingers and outswingers. With a very quick bowling action, he could bowl equally well from both sides of the wicket.

In his Test career, Akram took 414 wickets in 104 matches, a Pakistani record, at an average of 23.62 and scored 2,898 runs, at an average of 22.64.
In One Day Internationals, Akram took 502 wickets in 356 appearances, at an average of 23.52 and scored 3,717 runs, at an average of 16.52.
Akram was the first bowler in international cricket to take more than 400 wickets in both forms of the game and only Muttiah Muralitharan has since achieved this.[6][66]
Akram also held the record for the most wickets in Cricket World Cups, a total of 55 in 38 matches. Australia's Glenn McGrath broke the record during the 2007 Cricket World Cup, ending with a final tally of 71 from 39 matches.On passing Wasim's record, McGrath said, "Wasim Akram, to me, is one of the greatest bowlers of all time. Left-armer, swung it both ways with the new ball and he was so dangerous with the old ball. To go past him is something I will always remember. Probably the other side of the coin is that if you play long enough, you're going to break records here and there."
Akram took four hat-tricks in international cricket, two each in Tests matches and One Day Internationals. He is the only bowler in cricket to have achieved four hat-tricks. He was the third of only four bowlers to have taken two Test cricket hat-tricks, the others being Hugh Trumble, Jimmy Matthews and Stuart Broad. Akram was also the first of only five bowlers to have taken two One Day International cricket hat-tricks. Akram's Test hat-tricks are significant, since they were taken in consecutive Test matches in the same series, a game played against Sri Lanka in the 1998-99 Asian Test Championship. Akram is also one of only two bowlers to have taken both a Test match and One Day International hat-trick, the other being Pakistan fast bowler, Mohammad Sami.
Playing in a Test series against the West Indies at Lahore in 1990–1991, he became one of only six players to have taken four wickets in an over during a Test match. In Akram's case, these achievement was not part of a hat-trick, the third ball he delivered to the batting opposition was a dropped catch, which allowed a single run.
Akram has also achieved the highest score by a number eight batsman in Test cricket when he scored 257 runs not out from 363 balls against Zimbabwe at Sheikhupura. The innings contained 12 sixes which is also a world record for Test cricket.
He also has the joint-third highest number of Man of the Match awards in Test cricket, with seventeen.
He has scored the second-highest number of runs in One Day International matches by a player who has never scored a One Day International hundred. His highest score was 86 runs.