Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram Biography

Source (google.com.pk)

A dream cricketer. At his best Wasim Akram plays like most of us would wish to. He has complete mastery over swing and seam, and sometimes moves the ball both ways in one delivery. All this comes at high speed from a quick, ball-concealing action, and is backed up by the threat of a dangerous bouncer or deceptive slower delivery. Akram is rated by many as the best left-arm fast bowler of all time, and his career record certainly bears that out - along with the high regard of his contemporaries. He hit like a kicking horse, but batsmanship was one skill in which Akram underachieved, despite a monumental 257 against Zimbabwe in Sheikhupura in 1996-97. He was the natural successor to Imran Khan as Pakistan's leader and captain, but the match-fixing controversies of the 1990s harmed him, blunting his edge and dimming his lustre. Though he reached the 500-wicket landmark in ODIs in the 2003 World Cup, he was among the eight players dumped after Pakistan's miserable performance. He retired shortly after, following a brief spell with Hampshire. 

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif Biography

Source(Google.Com.Pk)

Few Pakistani fast bowlers have been as wily and smart as Mohammad Asif, though fewer have been as prone to scandal and controversy off the field. Neither claim can easily be made given the rich competition.
But such is the magic in the loose wrists of Asif. Pace is not his calling - he abhors such measurements - but he is unerringly accurate and cuts the ball either way with wicked regularity and glee. He is tall and lean so to these skills is added bounce and a natural ability to bowl long spells. An easy action and easier run-up mean that watching a long Asif spell, watching him out-think batsmen, is an experience in cricket not to be missed. 

On several occasions, in Kandy, in Karachi, at The Oval, in South Africa, and in Sydney, all of it has come together in spells not only of the very highest quality, but of crucial importance to Pakistan's cause. But if ever a young, small-town man was blinded by the bright lights of a big city and fame, it was Asif. 

Already, unforgivably, he has tested positive for steroids twice. Soon after the second offence, he was caught with a recreational drug in his wallet at Dubai airport and kept in detention for three weeks. Most seriously he was charged in 2010 with spot-fixing - bowling pre-planned, deliberate no-balls - and in February 2011 he was handed a seven-year ban, with two years suspended, by the ICC. With relation to these charges, he was tried at the Southwark Crown Court in London in October, and found guilty of cheating and accepting corrupt payments on November 1. He was sentenced to one year in prison.

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Asif

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir biography

Source (Google.Com.pk)

Mohammad Amir, a left-arm pace bowler, reveres Wasim Akram. Over 2007 and 2008, he also emerged, improbably young still, as a hot pace prospect. Even before he went to England on an U-19 tour, he had been picked out as a special talent by Akram himself at a pace camp he oversaw in Lahore in May 2007. By 2010, he had become the hottest pace bowling prospect around the world - but within months his career was in ruins following charges of spot-fixing.

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Muhammad Amir

Umar Gul

Umar Gul Biography
Source (Google.com.pk)

The least-hyped but most successful and assured Pakistan pace product of the last few years, Umar Gul is the latest in Pakistan's assembly-line of pace-bowling talent. He had played just nine first-class matches when called up for national duty in the wake of Pakistan's poor 2003 World Cup. On the flat tracks of Sharjah, Gul performed admirably, maintaining excellent discipline and getting appreciable outswing with the new ball.

He isn't express but bowls a very quick heavy ball and his exceptional control and ability to extract seam movement marks him out. Further, his height enables him to extract bounce on most surfaces and from his natural back of a length, it is a useful trait. His first big moment in his career came in the Lahore Test against India in 2003-04. Unfazed by a daunting batting line-up, Gul tore through the Indian top order, moving the ball both ways off the seam at a sharp pace. His 5 for 31 in the first innings gave Pakistan the early initiative which they drove home to win the Test.

Unfortunately, that was his last cricket of any kind for over a year as he discovered three stress fractures in his back immediately after the Test. The injury would have ended many an international career, but Gul returned, fitter and sharper than before in late 2005. He returned in a Pakistan shirt against India in the ODI series at home in February 2006 and in Sri Lanka showed further signs of rehabilitation by lasting both Tests but it was really the second half of 2006, where he fully came of age. Leading the attack against England and then the West Indies as Pakistan's main bowlers suffered injuries, Gul stood tall, finishing Pakistan's best bowler.

Since then, as Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar have floundered, Gul has become Pakistan's spearhead and one of the best fast bowlers in the world. He is smart enough and good enough to succeed in all three formats and 2009 proved it: he put together a patch of wicket-taking in ODIs, on dead pitches in Tests (including a career-best six-wicket haul against Sri Lanka) and established himself as the world's best Twenty20 bowler, coming on after the initial overs and firing in yorkers on demand.

He had hinted at that by being leading wicket-taker in the 2007 World Twenty20; over the next two years he impressed wherever he went, in the IPL for the Kolkatta Knight Riders and in Australia's domestic Twenty20 tournament. Confirmation came on the grandest stage: having poleaxed Australia in a T20I in Dubai with 4-8, he was the best bowler and leading wicket-taker as Pakistan won the second World Twenty20 in England. The highlight was 5-6 against New Zealand, the highest quality exhibition of yorker bowling. He is not a one-format pony, however, and will remain a crucial cog in Pakistan's attack across all formats.

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

  Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Umar Gul

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf Biography

Source (google.com.pk)

This much is at least certain that few Pakistani batsmen have been as elegant as Mohammad Yousuf and fewer still have been as prolific, as hungry to bat as long and bat as big.

At his best, watching Yousuf bat is an unnervingly tranquil experience, especially amid the traditional chaos of a Pakistan batting order. He has a dangerously high backlift, which makes every shot he plays, a late, unhurried afterthought, but a beautiful one. The feet take time to get going, but once they do, they dance with the best. Square and behind it on the off side are his areas, where his game is the most enchanting.

Both his life and career can be demarcated into two distinct phases. Until 2005, as Yousuf Youhana, he was only the fourth Christian to have played for Pakistan, and easily the most successful. He converted publicly to Islam late that year, after which he became a great Pakistani batsman and briefly part of as formidable a middle order as the country has seen, with Younis Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq on either side. At least he believes there to be a link, and statistics would back that up.

Immediately after, in 2006, came his most profitable year, in fact the most profitable for any batsman ever in a calendar year. Over 11 Tests, he scored 1788 runs with nine hundreds, breaking Sir Viv Richards' 30-year-old record. If there had been a nagging doubt that he often withered when the heat was on - and the story of his rise from extremely humble backgrounds as a member of a minority religion should've wiped those away anyway - it was erased here.

Age, run-ins with the board since, and ill-advised flirtations with the ICL and captaincy dimmed his aura but the worst came in March 2010, when the PCB imposed a life-ban on him, along with Younis Khan as a part of its unprecedentedly harsh sanctions on senior players from the ill-fated tour of Australia. Yousuf's was overturned in 2010.

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf

Muhammad Yousuf