Abdul Hafeez Kardar - Hero Worship
On November 8, the seemingly indomitable South Africans lifted the Golden Jubilee trophy by comfortably beating Sri Lanka at 'Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium, the venue of the letter's most memorable triumph in cricket.
| Waqar Younis - Most lethal bowler in cricket today |
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Recalling the ball-tampering allegations that surfaced against him in the 1992 series in England, the article gives account how super slow motion TV replays of his action later gave a lie to these allegations and Waqar, who demolished the England batting line-up in the first Test at Lord's of the current series, says the write-up, would be even more formidable opponent in the third Test side Oval, the scene of his two highly successful seasons with Surrey. On Waqar's technique it says that at barely six feet tall Waqar is hardly in the same mold as Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose who deliver from a height of nearly 10 feet, banging the ball into the pitch and looking for movement off the seam.
He has done so by harnessing his pace to the phenomenon of reverse swing, developed by quick bowlers on the subcontinent over the past 30 years. Given hard, bare pitches and rough uneven outfileds, they have abandoned the tradition of achieving swing by polishing one side of the ball to create an uneven air-flow past the seam. Instead they welcome the deterioration in the leather cover of the ball and, and once it is sufficiently damaged, apply sweat and spit on one side so that It is unevenly weighted — it is the science of bias as deployed on the bowling green since the days of Drake. It is the downward drag cussed by the extra weight on one side of the ball that creates the movement. While a succession of Pakistani pacemen have used the technique, starring with Sarfraz Nawaz, and passing through Imran, none had refined it to the same extent. If Waqar were to bowl slower, the ball would drag down too early and give the batsman an opportunity to adjust his shot. Were he bowl faster, the ball would not start its lethal movement until after it had passed the stumps. He had discovered the happy medium. Those jealous of his powers have accused Waqar of ball-tampering, using his fingernails to accelerate the deterioration of the leather, and after the media furore of 1992 the International Cricket Council (ICC ) ordered umpires to inspect the ball at the end of each over. Nothing has ever been proved despite the intrusion of the cameraman's long lens and slow-motion replays. 
 Set 1/2       Waqar claims that he could make an orange swing without interfering with die peel. Given the number of "Jafas" he has already produced this summer, even with the ICC directives in place, there are few grounds left for argument. Soon after he arrived to play for Surrey, a new word, "Waqared" entered the tabloid lexicon. By the 1992 Test series in England the only possible explanation, according to some, was the cruel and never proven allega¬tion of ball-tampering, However the critics did not have access to the super-slow-motion TV replays which now allow a complete investigation of Waqar's astonishing technique-APP Major teams Pakistan, Glamorgan, Karachi, Lahore, Multan, National Bank of Pakistan, Rawalpindi, Redco Pakistan Ltd, Surrey, United Bank Limited Batting style Right-hand bat Bowling style Right-arm fast Batting and fielding averages
published in Dawn, Pakistan in 1996.
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With the arguable exception of Shane Wame' flipper, Waqar's inswinging yorker is the game's most lethal weapon, The Sunday Times Wrote today.