Warne’s friends and foes - PakPassion

bone_thug786

Shane Warne has recently produced a ranking of the top 100 Test cricketers he has played with. The list, published in the book Shane Warne’s Century, includes his opponents, as well as a number of his own teammates. Nine Pakistanis have made the cut.

The highest ranked is Wasim Akram, at no. 6, and bringing up the rear is Shahid Afridi, who is placed 96th. In between, there are Saeed Anwar (29), Waqar Younis (31), Shoaib Akhtar (34), Mohammad Yousuf (53), Mushtaq Ahmed (88), Inzamamul Haq (90), and Moin Khan (95).

We may quibble about the rank order, but every follower will concur that these are some of the most remarkable contemporary cricketers produced by Pakistan. It’s heartening to know that no less a personage than the iconic Shane Warne thinks so too. Warne’s comments about these players make for some delicious reading. The sketch on Akram, for example, begins with Warne’s relief at being cloistered in the dressing room safely away from the action as Akram sent down a torrid spell against Australia at Rawalpindi in 1994. Warne marvels at Akram’s completeness as a fast bowler — his ability to move both the old ball and the new in either direction, backed up by a clever mind and a bottomless bag of tricks. ‘The only thing he couldn’t do,’ writes Shane Warne of this Pakistani legend, ‘is bowl right-handed, but he didn’t need to’.

It is a bit surprising to see Saeed Anwar listed fairly high up at no. 29 — he comes ahead of such dynamite names as Kevin Pietersen, Virender Sehwag, and even Sanath Jayasuria — but Warne justifies it well. Anwar’s distinguishing features are described as his adaptability, timing skill, calmness, and grace. Saeed Anwar commanded Warne’s respect through deft footwork and elastic wrists with which he handled top-class spin. Warne was once moved to ask how Anwar had developed such amazing wrists, to which Anwar’s answer was all those years of playing squash as a teenager.

The write-up on Waqar Younis celebrates him for his big legacy to the game, namely ‘releasing some of the mysteries of reverse swing’. There is also the inevitable comparison with Wasim Akram. ‘They were brilliant in tandem,’ writes Warne, although he gives the edge, as would most analysts, to Wasim. ‘Wasim got more wickets for Waqar than the other way around,’ he observes, in a subtle example of cricket logic, meaning that Wasim often softened up batsmen with tight and threatening bowling that helped Waqar in getting them out from the other end. According to Warne, Waqar’s most feared attributes have been his aggression and his skill at bowling in the death overs.

Most people will disagree with placing Shoaib Akhtar a mere three spots below Waqar (and far above other high-impact cricketers such as Mohammad Yousuf and Inzamamul Haq). Warne explains it by saying that Shoaib possesses an unquantifiable ‘X-factor’ that draws crowds and puts fear into batsmen’s hearts. He devotes several lines to one of Shoaib’s most memorable spells, against Australia at Colombo in 2002 when Shoaib, full of confidence and on song, removed Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh and Steve Waugh in the same awesome over and returned figures of five for 21 from eight overs. Appropriately, the profile is leavened with regret that Shoaib did not live up to his full talent and potential. ‘Brilliant, but erratic,’ Warne says of him, before conceding that perhaps this is precisely what makes him so attractive.

Mohammad Yousuf’s meteoric rise as a record-breaking world-class batsman has surprised Warne, who acknowledges that he had initially underestimated this great natural batsman from Pakistan. Quoting the late Bob Woolmer, Warne notes that Yousuf’s incredible batting transformation coincided with his conversion to Islam in 2005. Woolmer had said that the conversion had made Yousuf calmer and more relaxed. ‘I am not qualified to comment on that area,’ writes Warne, suggesting that perhaps ‘Yousuf felt more comfortable in the dressing-room after he took the decision’. Most of all, Warne singles out Yousuf for his inspirational rise from oblivion: as a child, Yousuf learnt to bat using planks of wood because he could not afford a proper bat. It’s a mesmerising Pakistani tale that’s waiting to be told.

The remaining four Pakistanis are clustered between nos. 88 through 96. Warne offers penetrating comments about each. He admires fellow leg-spinning ace Mushtaq Ahmed for being a speedy learner. In 1995, during Pakistan’s tour of Australia, Mushtaq engaged Warne in a long, disarming conversation in which the two bowlers ended up sharing notes on bowling grips; a few days later, Mushtaq was using a Warne-style flipper to dismiss Australian batsmen. The piece on Inzamam stands out for its wit; his low ranking is bound to raise many a Pakistani’s blood pressure, but it is somewhat understandable given Inzamam’s indifferent record against Australia.

Moin Khan is described by Warne as an easy pick, even though his figures don’t rank among the true greats. Warne admires Moin’s fighting instincts. ‘They called him the Karachi street fighter,’ he writes, adding that since ‘Javed Miandad went by the same nickname a decade earlier, it was not a tag given lightly’.

Finally, although Warne’s comments on Afridi are mostly predictable — stressing his inconsistent yet awesome game-changing ability — it gets fascinating when Warne addresses Afridi’s wrist-spin. Bottom-line: it is Afridi’s variations that make him so effective. ‘We will never know,’ Warne wonders ruefully, ‘how good a leg-spinner he could have become had he concentrated solely on his bowling’.

Warne’s book covers all the notable cricketers of the current era. Australians dominate with 31 names — understandable, given Warne’s own nationality and Australia’s cricketing pre-eminence. There are also 17 Englishmen, 11 Indians, nine West Indians, nine South Africans, seven New Zealanders, six Sri Lankans, and Andy Flower as the sole Zimbabwean representative.

Like an after-dinner mint following a sumptuous four-course feast, at the end of the book Warne provides us a satisfying aftertaste. When all is said and done, he chooses a Greatest Australian XI and a Greatest Rest of the World XI, drawn from players he has seen but not played against. His pick for captain of the Rest of the World side? None other than our magnificent hero Imran Khan.

Bublu Bhuyan

So there are 9 Pakistanis in that list.

maamrut

Wonder how many Indians made the list??

Bublu Bhuyan

Quote:

Originally Posted by maamrut

Wonder how many Indians made the list??

It's mentioned in the article -

Quote:

Originally Posted by bone_thug786

There are also 17 Englishmen, 11 Indians, nine West Indians, nine South Africans, seven New Zealanders, six Sri Lankans, and Andy Flower as the sole Zimbabwean representative.

Garuda

Quote:

Originally Posted by maamrut

Wonder how many Indians made the list??

Apart from Sachin (1),

Anil Kumble (13), Rahul Dravid (20), Virender Sehwag (35), Kapil Dev (43), Ravi Shastri (45), Dilip Vengsarkar (49), Mohammad Azharuddin (55), Harbhajan Singh (67), VVS Laxman (77) and Sourav Ganguly (96).