Akhtar was a brute force in world cricket, especially in the later part of the 20th century. In fact, the entire Pakistan team brought a unique brand of cricket to the mainstream. It was a time of fast bowling, aggression and pure passion. It was also a time when India and Pakistan used to play a lot of cricket together. Shoaib Akhtar, the fastest bowler in world cricket was in his prime in 1999. It was a Test match played in Kolkata in front of a packed Eden Gardens crowd. It was the 51st over of the Indian innings when Shoaib Akhtar picked up Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar’s wickets on back to back yorkers. The fast bowler took to Instagram to share this 22 year old moment.
Shoaib wrote: “22 years ago...22 years ago, On this day! What memories...” and shared a two minute video of the match and the two Indian wickets. Here is the video:
It was the inaugural game of the World Asian Test Championship. Akhtar bowled a swinging low full toss in full speed to a well set Dravid. The wall couldn’t get his bat down in time and was cleaned up by Akhtar. The very next ball, India’s batting sensation in 1999, Sachin Tendulkar took guard only to be cleaned up by Akhtar to an even more quick delivery. Tendulkar was done for pace or swing, no one would know. But he was beaten, quite embarrassingly. It was magic by Akhtar!
The huge Kolkata crowd was silenced by this debacle. Shoaib went down on his knees to celebrate the moment, and why wouldn’t he? It was only the second golden duck of Tendulkar’s career. That Pakistan team was brutal and to play out those fast bowlers was a humongous task. Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq were some world class bowlers who could bowl out any team on a given day.
Twitterati also remembered this moment and shared the video widely on social media. See what they said:
They don’t make fast-bowlers like Akhtar anymore, do they?