Pakistan legend Wasim Akram, who turned 56 on Friday, might be celebrated all around the world but he and his family overcame several tough situations during his illustrious career.
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‘Legend’ is often a loosely used term that is used to address eminent personalities from various sectors for their achievements. But with regards to cricket, it might be an understatement, for an enigma like Wasim Akram who made his ball do the talking and batters of the tallest stature feared him for his swing and pace in his long and illustrious career of nearly two decades.
Akram is a bowlers’ dream. He is someone who most youngsters look up to and would like to replicate in their playing career. Such is the benchmark set by the ‘Sultan of Swing’. He went on to pick up 916 wickets in his international career after making his debut in 1984 it included four hat-tricks besides becoming the first bowler to take 500 wickets. But every successful story has its pros and cons and even the Pakistan legend was not spared from the offield controversies.
What is the cost that one pays to be a stalwart of the game? Generally when one performs to the best of his ability, fans turn cricketers into overnight heroes and give them a demi-god stature. But when they don’t the reverse of it sometimes goes way beyond imagination.
In January 1998, Akram’s father Chaudhry Akram was abducted for his alleged match-fixing. A day later his father suffered a heart attack with his family receiving several threats over phone calls and letters since Pakistan’s poor performance in the Champions’ Trophy in Sharjah.
“My brother called to say my father had suffered a heart attack and the reason behind it, I believe, was that he had been kidnapped for a day. Those people who kidnapped him thought that, you know, a match was fixed even though someone else was captaining the side at the time. They held him captive for a day and they were hitting him all over for a day – and he is 65 years old,” the Pakistan legend had told the Daily Mirror in 2000.
That year, Akram, was supposed to lead his national team on their tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe but he decided to step down from the role due to the surmounting pressure building on him with the overflowing threats. “I can’t sustain the pressure any more,” Wasim said. “It’s very sad that after serving the country with so much dedication and distinction, you get such treatment.”
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