Shoaib Akhtar

Shoaib Akhtar (Punjabi pronunciation: [ˈʃoeːb əxtər]; born 13 August 1975) is a Pakistani former international cricketer and commentator. Nicknamed the "Rawalpindi Express", he is one of the fastest bowlers in cricketing history. Akhtar made his Test match debut in November 1997 as an opening fast bowler and played his first One Day International three months later. Post-retirement, he began a YouTube career by starting his own channel, where he gives reviews on International and league matches and Pakistani cricket.

Akhtar was born into a Punjabi family, with his paternal side belonging to the Gujjar community and maternal side to the Awan community, in the small town of Morgah in Rawalpindi, Punjab.

His father, Mohammad Akhtar, whom Shoaib describes as very religious and “from a hardworking, economically unprivileged family of the Gujjar community”, worked as a night watchman at a petrol station belonging to the Attock oil refinery, and married his mother, Hameeda Awan, when she was a teenager, and they had five children: four sons, Shoaib being the fourth, followed by a daughter, while his name, which in Arabic means both “the one who brings people together” and “the one who separates”, was chosen by his mother.

He married Rubab Khan on 11 November 2014. In November 2016, they welcomed their first child, a son named Mohammad Mikaeel Ali, and in July 2019 they became parents a second time to another baby boy, Mujaddid. In March 2024, they welcomed a baby girl, Nooreh Ali.

A good student, Akhtar was admitted to the Asghar Mall College, but he disrupted his studies to attend trials for the PIA team's Karachi division to be held in Lahore. Lacking the money for a bus ticket, he waited for the bus to start and got onto the roof.

After some struggle, starting his List A career during the 1993/1994 season and his first-class career in 1994/1995, he caught the eye of Majid Khan, then the chief executive of the PCB, and after a good performance for the Pakistan A team's tour of England, in 1996, he was rewarded with his maiden Test cap against the West Indies in 1997.

Considering his subsequent high profile in cricket, Akhtar's Test career started rather modestly. He was first picked to play on his home ground in Rawalpindi during the 2nd Test of the West Indies 1997/98 tour of Pakistan. He was subsequently included in the tour of South Africa during the winter of 1998, where he played in all three Tests. He was notably the spearhead of a depleted Pakistani bowling attack in the Peshawar Test against the visiting Australians later in 1998, where Mark Taylor scored his famous unbeaten 334 in Australia's first innings. Subsequently, after 8 Tests and 16 innings, Akhtar had accumulated only 18 wickets.

Akhtar's run of impressive performances started in 1999, during a pre-World Cup series against India. It was followed by outstanding bowling performances in Sharjah and later in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Writing in the context of the 1999 World Cup, former West Indies fast bowler Colin Croft, who compared his bowling style to that of Waqar Younis "in approach and delivery", also wrote that "Shoaib could very well be the first bowler to pass the official 100 miles per hour mark." His most significant performance was in India in 1999 when he captured eight wickets in the Asian Test championship match at Calcutta – including the wickets of Indian batsmen Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar when he bowled both batsmen off successive deliveries. It was the first ball he ever bowled to Tendulkar. He was also involved in Tendulkar's wicket in the 2nd innings of that same Test, when he was perceived as obstructing him from reaching the crease before he was run out by a long throw from substitute fielder Nadeem Khan, leading to rioting in the stands.