Profile

Waqar Younis is cited alongside Wasim Akram, Alan Donald and Glenn Mcgrath as the most lethal as well as fastest bowlers of the last decade. Although there is nothing dubious about the stature enjoyed by Donald and Mcgrath, but still due consideration needs to be given to the fact that while they played most of their cricket on the fast and bouncy tracks, perfectly conducive to fast bowling, of South Africa and Australia respectively and were also duly backed up by the spectacular fielding of the two teams, Waqar Younis, on the other hand, played most of his cricket on the slow and docile tracks of the sub-continent backed by a fielding that has nothing so distinguished to write about. An astonishing number of Waqar's wickets have been clean bowled or have come from leg-before decisions showing how much he has had to depend on his own efforts to get his batsmen.

For a fast bowler like Waqar to stay at par with the gruelling international as well as county circuit for the last 11 years, keeping in mind that there have been so many fast bowlers who have been touted in the same category as Waqar, but breakdown just a few years into the career (Shoaib Akhter, Mohammad Zahid, etc.) to injuries, speaks miles about the determination of this great man. Waqar too has had his share of injuries, some of which have even tempted the cricket pundits to write him off, but he has always had the endurance to bounce back.

People do argue that today’s Waqar is not the same in terms of speed and aggressiveness as the one who completed his first 50 test wickets in only 10 matches, whose strength would lie on the deadly combination of explosive pace and reverse swing with which he would shatter stumps or bruise toes of even world class batsmen. At 29 years of age, the youth and exuberance of a fast bowler is definitely over the hill. But Waqar has gone a lot more mature as a bowler. He has deliberately cut down upon his pace as a result of which his line and length is far more precise than what it used to be and he goes for a far lesser amount of runs. The same Waqar who would solely rely upon his pace to overcome the opposition, now cleverly plays with the weaknesses of the batsmen. He has also gained more control over his out-swingers which adds to the immense ambiguities facing the batsmen.

There is no denying the fact that in the last couple of years, Waqar has been mistreated by his captains as well as selectors. Waqar has been coming in and out of the team thus effecting the consistency of his performance. Even when played, he has been under-used on numerous occasions. It has become a general feature that Waqar is always the one who finishes off the top order but when it comes to clearing the prized tail, the honor is give to other bowlers. Some people might have a justification that Waqar is not as effective with the old ball now. I rest my case with an example. In the first inning of the first test against Srilanka in the latest tour and last inning of the last test, Waqar needed just one ball apiece to get rid of the juggernaut Muralitharan who had earlier been defying the remaining blessed bowlers (of the captain) for quite a few overs.



Main Statistics Pictures News