Wasim Akram

I'll try and find it.

There was a very famous Wasim Akram over back in the day as well at the Basins.

Like, do you mean fast or just, or wides bold, no balls bold? Just

all of a sudden, uncharacteristically, it was an over-littered with no balls and wides.

Varun Chakravarti, who was bowling, you know, the mystery, the mystery that was bowling in the future games, went for 33.

Right? Who else? Who else played that game? Was it Javi? Javi? Bhuvie, like the colored-eyed magician that swings in and out, the Vasim Akram of Pakistan.

He went for it.

Everybody went for runs in that game.

bowling.Yeah.

Uh, I think in white-ball you might as well count Wasim Akram as an all-rounder as well, 'cause he's averaging-

Probably

... 20-plus with the bat somewhat.

I think, I think in the piece I talk about Bumrah and McGrath's memory, and I can't remember who else.

Maybe, maybe you would throw, maybe Wasim Akram's ability to try the right thing at the right time, um, with a couple of other bowlers.

I can't think of anyone.

Malcolm Marshall maybe.

So, so you've got sort of that sort of Bumrah and McGrath supercomputer brain.

Clearly Marco Jansen doesn't have that, and clearly Mohammed Siraj doesn't have that, right? And then you've got that sort of, um, that ability to read the conditions and work it out exactly what you're supposed to be doing on that day that maybe Malcolm Marshall and Wasim Akram had, right? And between the four of those bowlers, they all have little bits of each, but those are probably the absolute pinnacles of those kinds of skills.

Well, Mohammed Siraj maybe have some- has some of the weapons of those guys, but does he know exactly when and how to use them? Probably not.

And that's a really consistent thing, right? We see that right across cricket all the time.

... you know, in test cricket, not so many, I guess.

Not so many, not so many as, um, when you consider Wasim Akram and Vaas and, um, Bruce Reid and-

Alan Davidson

...

And I can explain to you what, uh, happened as far as I'm concerned.

He's a bit like a young Wasim Akram.

He'd bowl all over the place.

He's always bowled wild deliveries, but he's bowled that many wicket-taking deliveries that he's got away with it.

So now I'm just confused as to who you thought was the really obvious second pick.

[laughs] Man, there are just so many cricketers who's debuted as teenagers, and I can think of a few of them, but in my head I was going Wasim Akram.

Uh, no, that was not him.

Yep.

But at that point it was like, oh my God, we just got a batter, and five minutes later we've got this bowler coming through, and he was brilliant, and, like, just, like, out of the box one of the best bowlers in the world.

Yeah.

And I don't know if Wasim Akram was out of the box one of the best bowlers in the world.

I think with Wasim Akram it was like, whoa, look at this left-armer.

So what time are you thinking now? Like in

the Waseem Akram period.

Like they were probably the best, one of the best teams in the world.

I don't know if you probably remember better than me.