India’s legendary batter, Sachin Tendulkar has always been a nightmare for the bowlers, considering the wide range of shots that he came to the fore with and the kind of domination that he has stitched over the years. An illustrious career saw almost all the iconic bowlers being tamed emphatically in the 22-yards.
Given the long span of his career that stretched for a staggering 24 years, it is quite obvious that Sachin has had a lot of rivals, a few of them with whom things spiralled out of control while the others have posted a stunning contest of the willow and leather, earmarking them for future references of greatness.
One of the iconic rivalries that took flight during the battle-days of Sachin Tendulkar was that with Wasim Akram where the duo faced off countless times and the response that each other crafted was equally iconic. Despite the rivalry on the field, the mutual respect that they both had for each other was immense and it’s for this very reason, that Tendulkar opted to contribute a paragraph in Wasim Akram’s autobiography, Sultan: A Memoir.
Talking about Akram’s bowling potential, Sachin wrote, “Cricket is a team sport, but everything goes back to the rivalry of batter and bowler, and in Wasim Akram every batter had a wonderful rival – when you play against someone of that calibre, it lifts your game as well, and the experience stays with you forever. Wasim was a master. He made the ball talk.”
He concluded, “His run-up was so natural. Unlike most fast bowlers, he didn’t need to measure his steps; he could just start from anywhere and still be as effective. He ran through the crease so quickly you hardly had time to set yourself up. When I first faced him, I’d never encountered anyone like Wasim. Every game we played against each other I remember. and every time we meet now it is in warm friendship.” If we look back at the chequered cricketing antiquity between India and Pakistan, a lion’s share of the memories has been presented to us by this iconic duo and now the kind of respect that they share for each other is a burning definition of what ‘rivalry’ looks like.
