Sultan: A Memoir

by Wasim Akram

I was in my fourth over when John Wright, New Zealand’s captain, nicked to Ramiz at second slip. For all his batting skill, Ramiz was at slip for reasons of rank, because his father was a commissioner and because he’d attended Aitchison College – he dropped more than he caught, frankly.

Imran locked himself in his room, so Sunny sent a girl up to knock, knowing Imran could not resist opening the door; when he did, we poured in, throwing colour everywhere.

Against the West Indies in Lahore, we were bailed out by a fearless half-century from Sally, who was dropped from three consecutive balls.

Mind you, everyone’s favourite prank was persuading me that on being introduced to a woman it was polite to ask: ‘So, do you like shagging?’

They looked cute, seemed playful. I thought some animal company might be nice, so I told the shop assistant I liked them. ‘Have four,’ he said. There were two problems. Firstly, they stank. Secondly, they could not be left at home, relying as they did on a constant supply of crickets. My constant supply of cricket had to take precedence.

The guard was changing in India too, reflected in the party they brought to Pakistan soon after. At National Stadium in Karachi, we got our first glimpse of Sachin Tendulkar, who was purportedly sixteen but looked about twelve.

They did not grasp how quickly the side of a ball could deteriorate if you neglected it, bowled the odd cross-seam ball, bounce-returned it to the keeper. They simply derided us as ‘cheating Pakis’. The sole exception was Geoff Boycott, who stuck steadfastly by his view that Waqar and I could ‘bowl England out with an orange’.

The tour ended in a remarkably mellow fashion in the Netherlands, where we went for a few games and a lot of relaxation. I remember very little about the trip because, to be quite honest, you could order marijuana in Amsterdam as easily as coffee in Melbourne – it was on the cafe menus. ‘Do whatever you want,’ said Javed. I do recall that it was cold, but after a while we didn’t feel it.

In a game at Portsmouth, we blooded a new all-rounder whom Bumble strongly recommended. ‘This lad’s got hands like bookets,’ he insisted, so we posted him at slip where he promptly put down his first two chances. ‘Fuck off out of there, Freddie,’ I said finally – for it was, of course, seventeen-year-old Andrew Flintoff. I took seven for 52 so my annoyance didn’t last long, and I could soon see what Bumble saw. Freddie had a sound enough batting technique to open for us in the Sunday League, and the height and strength to be genuinely quick. He was reluctant to bowl at the time, but I talked him into it: ‘Fuck, man, you’ve got real pace. Have a go.’ He was playing for England within three years.

As soon as the match was lost, Pakistan TV began playing mournful sitar tunes – the way that one might on the death of a great leader. Fans were reported to have died of heart attacks. A college student emptied a Kalashnikov into his television set. There was particular unrest in Lahore, which had been eagerly expecting to host us in the final. I was being execrated by politicians. I was being burned in effigy. Posters of me were being defaced. My mother received threatening telephone calls. My home in Model Town was pelted with stones, and I was sued by a neighbour for ‘criminal negligence’. Pamphlets were published alleging that I had been paid millions not to play, that I had been dancing in Bangalore’s Oasis nightclub the night before the game, even that Huma had masterminded it all. Rumours circulated that we had lost out of fear of retaliation from the Hindu nationalist party, Shiv Sena; that we had been doped with drugged snacks, that we had been infiltrated by spies.

Courtney was a superb bowler, a fine captain and a great guy. His blind spot was his batting. At Peshawar, two of Courtney’s bats were stolen from the dressing room, which he regarded as such a calamity that he demanded a meeting with the local police commissioner.

Were we on the brink of something special? We flew to Delhi, where the BCCI had drafted a security cordon of 10,000 police augmented by snake charmers, in case Shiv Sena made good a threat to release cobras in Feroz Shah Kotla.

Finally, umpires Steve Bucknor and David Orchard called an early tea, whereupon Dalmiya prevailed on Tendulkar to come out and pacify the crowd, and a message blazed across the big screen: ‘Calcutta loves cricket. Please respect Eden’s traditions.’ Eden’s traditions, though, were part of the problem. There was obviously concern at the prospect of a sequel to the riot that had concluded India’s 1996 World Cup.

Steve Bucknor was virtually blind by the time his career ended.

When we landed at Chennai International Airport, we had none of the relevant permissions; we had no visas. Indian authorities waived the requirements. The Apollo waived all payment. I’ll never forget their kindness.

Sometimes in our expectations of cricketers, I think, we forget of whom our national teams are composed: ambitious and driven young men, fiercely competitive, sometimes immature, often unworldly, doing their damnedest to get the better of others very much like them, burdened by expectation, acclaimed in success, reviled in failure.

But now our world is expanding again, as is Aiyla’s understanding of it. Recently she came to me and said insistently: ‘Daddy, show me your TikTok.’ ‘Aiyla!’ I protested. ‘You’re seven!’ She asked nicely about my social media accounts, so I showed her some tweets. ‘Six million followers!’ she exclaimed. Then she looked at me curiously. I could hear the cogs in her mind turning. Who was this man, her dad? What was his story? Where did he come from? What did he do that justified so many likes? This is for her then, and for you.