Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is usually considered one of the game’s best batsmen of all time. Tendulkar has scored more runs in one-day internationals (ODIs) and Tests than anyone else in history, and he also has more international hundreds (100) than anybody else. Tendulkar had a healthy rivalry with the likes of Wasim Akram, the famed left-arm speedster and former captain of Pakistan, throughout his 24-year international career.
In spite of Akram’s earlier international debut, he and Tendulkar were bitter rivals for most of the 1990s. They obviously like one other a lot, since Tendulkar wrote a special introduction to Wasim Akram’s book, Sultan: A Memoir, in which the “master blaster” (as Tendulkar is affectionately called) praised the renowned fast bowling great.
A bowler of Akram’s calibre “lifts your game,” Tendulkar said in an article, adding that Akram “makes the ball speak.”
“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,” Tendulkar wrote in Akram’s book.
“It was so easy for him to run up. He didn’t have to count his steps as most fast bowlers do. He could start from anywhere and still be just as effective. He went through the crease so fast that you barely had time to get ready. When I first met Wasim, I had never met anyone like him before. I remember every game we played against each other. Every time we see each other now, it’s as friends,” the former India batter wrote.
The record for most one-day international wickets by a fast bowler belongs to Wasim Akram, who was also the first bowler in ODI history to take more than 500 wickets. His final tally of 502 wickets in 356 ODI appearances was an impressive feat. The former left-arm bowler had an outstanding Test career, ending with 414 wickets in 106 matches.
