Wasim Akram

Profile:
The all-time great

Yet another in the long line of Pakistan's precocious cricketers, Wasim Akram was being compared to legendary Australian left-handed quickie, Allan Davidson, even before he had played his first Test. By the time he played his 100th Test, he had established himself not only as the greatest southpaw ever, but also as one of all-time greats of the game.

Brought out of the wilderness by that astute spotter of new talent, Javed Miandad, he took to the big league as easily as a fish to water. In only his second Test against New Zealand at Dunedin, the prodigy had a haul of 10 wickets, becoming the youngest bowler to achieve the signal honour.

He was lightning fast then, revelling in his youth and was also quick to learn all the tricks of the trade from his mentor, Imran Khan, who was generous in imparting his knowledge to the young protege. Under the master's benign gaze, he quickly fashioned his lethal swinging yorker, deceptive variation of pace, the one moving sharply into the right-handed batsman as well as his natural away-swinger slanting across the right-hander, and employed this formidable array to telling effect. He was soon being singled out as being among the all-time greats of bowling.

After 15 years of intense international cricket, both for his country and in county cricket in England, his pace may have slowed down a fraction but his penetration and ability to beat the bat almost at will remains unrivalled. And he has a glorious record to show for his efforts. Wasim Akram is the only bowler to have captured more than 400 wickets both in Test and one-day cricket. The only one to have passed 400 in the limited-overs cricket, he also has a brace of hat-tricks in both forms of the game.

As captain, his greatest disappointment was in not being able to emulate the feat of Imran Khan and winning the 1999 World Cup, bowing out to Australia in the final: a case of so near, yet so far. Yet another major reverse also fell in late 1999, when with him leading the side Down Under, Pakistan was blanked out by the Aussies in the short rubber.

To this greatest of left-handed bowlers the game has known, another letdown must be his inability to establish himself as a genuine all-rounder in the class of Imran. Despite flashes of brilliance, as in the '92 World Cup and in the Sheikhupura Test against Zimbabwe, when he made 257, he has not fulfilled his tremendous potential - and cricket is the loser for it.

The match-fixing scandal that has haunted him for nearly half a decade is also a blot on an otherwise brilliant career.