Wasim - style over substance?

[JontyPanesar]

Wasim was one of the few who did well in Australia. 36 wickets in 9 matches, at 24, with 3 5fers. Not too shabby

I do agree for the most part with the rest though

My claim is rooted in the unfair comparison of Akram v. McGrath. McGrath outbowled him every time, but it's also not as if they were bowling to the same quality of batsmen, or had the same quality of fellow bowlers, or even were at the same stages in their careers. That '99 tour really sticks out to me, and that's not fair to his overall record. Good call, OS.

I think I'm the only one who will talk about the elephant in the room. Wasim was a dirty fixer and I wonder to what extent it affected his bowling and Pakistan's performances in tests.

 

[hendrix]

LOL I have absolutely NO problems with people not walking...infact anyone who suggests that batsmen should walk when they nick it such as the recent article by Mark Nicholas who likened it to batsman being caught at the covers..I find that extremely annoying and downright stupid for precisely one reason.
The Great Oscar Wilde rightly said that morality is an attitude we adopt to judge people we don't like.
The likes of Langer, Ponting, Gilchrist, Lehman, all such vocal proponents of walking when it comes to other players have on many occasions engaged in oscar worthy performances at various times when it involved them. The same Ponting who wants you to trust the fielder and walk put Al Pacino to shame in the World Cup game against Pakistan when he pretended he didn't hit it.
I remember during the 2010 Ashes, Michael Clarke was caught at short leg, but he waited for the third umpire's calling despite knowing he was out, and then later apologised publicly.

Clarke's behaviour on this has been inconsistent. He caught Jayawardene once and when Jayawardene hung around, he pointedly went up and said "100% sure I caught that" and Jayawardene promptly walked off.

However, there have been times when he has been caught and stood his ground, even though the fielder was clearly claiming the catch - he often got away with it too due to foreshortening and how difficult it is for the camera to properly represent those catches.

 

[salman85]

Wasim was not a clean cricketer.But i don't think he was as dirty as he is made out to be.He was shady yes,and always one of those guys that you could suspect of fixing,but his extent of involvement in the whole thing is overplayed IMO.

I think what actually affected his performance off the field was politics in the dressing room, something that he was a very active part of during the 1990s.

 

[marc71178]

Interestingly he was never ranked number 1 bowler in the World at any point and his peak rating stands at 63rd of all time. Admittedly neither of those are necessarily conclusive of anything (in particular the peak rating as that doesn't show anything about consistency) but I do think that says something about why he's not rated as highly as a lot of others.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Some excellent posts on this thread.

I'm aware of the fact that my "style over substance" title may seem reductive. I think it was put far better by those who simply said that the increase in pure skill he had (or might have had) over his fellow greats didn't translate into more success. Meaning by implication that much of it was residual - i.e. not needed.

The obvious answer to this is Glenn McGrath. Probably the man who used what ability he had to the maximum in terms of purely taking wickets. Begs the question, if Wasim had slightly less up his sleeve, maybe he would have stuck to a certain stock delivery, and got more wickets.

Interesting thought

 

[Jono]

I don't know how much of Pakistan's cricket you watched in the 90s but Latif and Moin hardly EVER dropped catches..
In fact based purely on wicket keeping ability, Rashid Latif is the best wicket keeper that I have seen play, ahead of Healy, Gilchrist etc.

It was just a Pakistani troll joke.

 

[Riggins]

It was just a Pakistani troll joke.

Ever since India ascended to the top of the world fielding ratings you haven't stopped criticising everyone's fielding have you!?

 

[benchmark00]

Riggs having a golden spring.

 

[Jono]

Ever since India ascended to the top of the world fielding ratings you haven't stopped criticising everyone's fielding have you!?

Exclamation mark the key here.

 

[bail]

Wasim Akram must have been a fabulous under-performer / underminer. Given the amount of skills he had, he should have been Marshal like. He was effing unplayable when ever he wanted him to be. Ambrose was the best of this era. Both are different bowlers so can not even compare style wise.

 

[Burgey]

I tink it's a bit harsh to say he was style over substance. He took 300+ test wickets at a pretty damn good average, made test tons ans also spent a decent whack of time captaining his side. The again, I'm biased. He's one of my favourite cricketers of all time.

 

[benchmark00]

I tink it's a bit harsh to say he was style over substance. He took 300+ test wickets at a pretty damn good average, made test tons ans also spent a decent whack of time captaining his side. The again, I'm biased. He's one of my favourite cricketers of all time.

You're also a **** of limitless proportions ftr.

 

[Jono]

Hey mate go easy.

 

[benchmark00]

No, he needs to hear it.

 

[Jono]

 

[Burgey]

 

[Black_Warrior]

Some excellent posts on this thread.

I'm aware of the fact that my "style over substance" title may seem reductive. I think it was put far better by those who simply said that the increase in pure skill he had (or might have had) over his fellow greats didn't translate into more success. Meaning by implication that much of it was residual - i.e. not needed.

The obvious answer to this is Glenn McGrath. Probably the man who used what ability he had to the maximum in terms of purely taking wickets. Begs the question, if Wasim had slightly less up his sleeve, maybe he would have stuck to a certain stock delivery, and got more wickets.

Interesting thought

Interesting thought. But ultimately I think that a cricketer has to maximise his own areas of strength to the fullest rather than trying to follow what works for someone else.
The thing is, Wasim's strength was his variety and skill level with the ball, McGrath's strength was accuracy, consistency and control.
Wasim never had McGrath's control, so often he has wasted the first day conditions of a match by bowling too short in the later stages of his career.
So ultimately I don't think he would have had more success if he had less up his sleeve, because ultimately what gave him 900 international wickets was what he had up his sleeve.
I think his career was effected by a few external factors as has been mentioned in this thread before. I don't know if he 'fixed' test matches but definitely the off field politics, issues with Waqar, Aamer Sohail, Ijaz, PCB and just being in and out of the team for a large part of the 97-98 seasons led to some level of inconsistency.

 

[Black_Warrior]

I tink it's a bit harsh to say he was style over substance. He took 300+ test wickets at a pretty damn good average, made test tons ans also spent a decent whack of time captaining his side. The again, I'm biased. He's one of my favourite cricketers of all time.

even when he was singlehandedly unpeeling and orange with a bottle opener?

 

[Burgey]

It was part of his charm.

 

[slowfinger]

sounds like a decent cricketer then.