KARACHI: Famed paceman Wasim Akram was upbeat Tuesday about growing signs that India and Pakistan are to resume cricketing ties, nearly four years after they were suspended following the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai.

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf is in India negotiating a revival of matches after watching the Indian Premier League (IPL) final.

India has also allowed the Sialkot Stallions to take part in October’s Champions League, the first such participation by a Pakistani team since 2008.

Wasim, who as bowling coach helped Kolkata Knight Riders win their maiden IPL title on Sunday, said there were signs of a thaw.

“I acted as an ambassador for Pakistan as everyone knows me and during my stay I have seen that people want Indo-Pak cricket to start and for me the invitation for Sialkot is the first step,” Wasim said.

Pakistani players featured in the inaugural IPL in 2008 and Sialkot was due to participate in the first Champions League the same year, until the Mumbai attacks saw cricket ties suspended.

Wasim, 45, expressed his hope that the doors to the IPL will open for Pakistani cricketers next year.

“Pakistani players Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Umar Akmal and Mohammad Hafeez are popular in India and Indian fans have realised they can add to the charm of the league,” said Wasim, who played 104 Tests and 352 one-day internationals for Pakistan.

Wasim added that India not playing Pakistan was a great setback for the millions of spectators in both countries.

“I am a great advocate of Indo-Pak cricket and I hope all the issues between the two countries are solved so that millions of fans are not deprived of such entertaining cricket,” said Wasim, who led Pakistan on the tour of India in 1999.

Turning to Pakistan’s imminent tour to Sri Lanka, Wasim said: “Pakistan has done well in the past year and although it will be tough playing Sri Lanka on their home grounds I am sure this Pakistan team will do well.”

Pakistan play two Twenty20, five one-dayers and three Tests on the tour of Sri Lanka, with the first Twenty20 taking place in Hambantota on Friday.

Courtesy: TIMES OF INDIA

Kolkata Knight Riders bowling Coach Wasim Akram on Sunday said that Sunil Narine was a revelation the fifth season of the Indian Premier League.

“He (Narine) has been a revelation. Nobody could read him in this tournament and I don’t think anybody will do it in the next two years. It’s good for KKR.”

Akram was extremely proud talking about the bowlers in KKR.

“My bowlers are the best in the world and we can beat any team with this bowling attack. The variety and the wicket-taking ability are incredible. It’s good to be a part of this team,” he was quoted as saying by iplt20.com.

Akram makes no bones talking about the fact that the change in leadership has resulted in change of fortunes for the team.

“The leadership, the contribution from senior and the foreign players was the key. We’re a family, not a team. We supported each other through thick and thin, and that helped.”

“It was incredible. Credit goes to the captain and his team on the way they have fought throughout the tournament. My voice is gone and I am feeling the same when I did after winning the World Cup for Pakistan. It was worth the wait,” Akram concluded.

Courtesy: CRICKET COUNTRY

Former Pakistan pacer and Kolkata Knight Riders bowling coach Wasim Akram feels his game would have perfectly suited for the shortest format of the game.

“I missed on playing Twenty20 cricket; I only played two games for Hampshire in 2003 when the format was just introduced. I believe this format would have suited my game – my bowling and batting,” said Akram.

Akram also emphasised on wicket-taking ability of the bowler as an important aspect in T20. “If I have wicket-taking bowlers, I’ll pick all of them because that’s how you win games in T20. It is an entertaining format, but it kills the bowlers, especially on the subcontinent tracks. According to me, in T20, getting wickets is the key. Generally, the batting teams look to get to 100-110 in 15 overs with wickets in hand, and then, have a go in the last five overs,” said the former pacer.

The Kolkata bowling coach was very impressed with South African speedster Dale Steyn and felt Brett Lee too can join him at the top.

“I like Dale Steyn. He runs in hard every ball and varies his pace. He’s got the yorkers, the bouncers, and swing – everything a fast bowler should have. Even Brett Lee runs in, but he’s a bit expensive on the Indian tracks because he relies too heavily on pace. He doesn’t have as many variations as Steyn does, but he’s learning. He’s a quick learner,” said a delighted Akram.

With the advent of T20 format, lot of bowlers have adapted themselves to the shortest format of the game, however all the debates and discussions highlight towards the dipping quality of fast bowlers and spinners aiming to excel in Test matches. Akram pointed out that picking wickets in T20 and Test matches is a different ball game altogether.

“In T20, the bowlers bowl a lot of slower balls. These bowlers are T20 specialists and might not get wickets in the longer formats where you need to swing the ball, you need good pace. In T20, all you need to do is keep varying the pace. These are the guys who know their limitations and bowl within them. They’re not sharp and quick, and they don’t try to bowl quick. They concentrate on their strength, which is variation, and that’s the key to their IPL success,” he said.

Akram further added that just possessing good bowling skills is not enough unless the bowler is clever enough to judge the batsmen’s intent.

“More than pace, swing, talent, everything, it’s the mind that matters. It all depends on how intelligently you bowl. Sitting in the dugout, I can tell when the batsman is going to go after the bowler. At times, I wish I had a microphone through which I could tell my bowlers what to bowl next. In T20, if you bowl two dot balls in a row, you can be 100 percent sure the batsman will go after you, either over the fine-leg, or if it’s in the slot, he’ll hit it straight,’ Akram was quoted as saying the official website of Indian Premier League.

Sparkling performance of some of the star players in IPL has constantly brought up discussions about, how the veteran cricketers of the ‘80s and ’90s would deal with this game. According to Akram, former Australian fast bowler Malcom Marshall and lanky West Indian express Joel Garner would have savoured playing in this format of the game.

“I’d have loved to see Joel Garner and Malcom Marshall. For me, Marshall was the best bowler ever in the history of the game. I rate bowlers who get wickets in subcontinent and Marshal got wickets everywhere in the world. He was a very clever bowler and what separated him from the others was that he picked the weakness of the batsman in a split second. These qualities would’ve made him interesting to watch in this format,” he said

Akram has picked more than 900 international wickets and is regarded as one of the best left-arm pacers in World cricket. He’s one of the few Pakistani players who have garnered huge fan following in India. The pacer visits India frequently for various bowling camps across the country.

IPL 2012 is Akram’s third stint with the tournament having joined the Kolkata Knight Riders as bowling coach in 2010. Since then he has been instrumental in the progress of many fast bowlers not only from the Knight Riders but from other team’s as well.

Courtesy: CRICKETCOUNTRY.COM

Mumbai: Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara, who has amassed more than 20,000 runs in international cricket, today said facing former Pakistan skipper Wasim Akram and Indian pacer Zaheer Khan were the toughest.

“I think I only faced a few overs of Wasim Akram but that was pretty tough. Zaheer Khan was tough to face,” the former Sri Lankan captain said.

The wicketkeeper-batsman, however added in a lighter vein that some of his teammates in the Deccan Chargers had managed to get him out unjustly.

“Darren Lehman (coach of Chargers) got me caught out when the ball hit my front pad, but he still says I was out. (Dale) Steyn has got me out a couple of times once unluckily of a no-ball,” said Sangakkara during an event organised by the Deccan Chargers team sponsor Emirates Airline.

A couple of players and the coach from the Hyderabad franchise were here to impart coaching tips to kids from a city school to promote development of the sport at the grassroots.

Meanwhile, Australian Cameron White, whose quickfire 78 helped the Chargers register their first win in the Indian Premier League when they defeated Pune Warriors, said the best way to negotiate the yorkers is to get back to the fundamentals.

“You have to get back to the fundamentals of watching the ball and probably the most important point is to try and hit it straight. If you try and across the line you might get into a bit of trouble. The most important thing is to hit straight back down the pitch,” said White.

With short-pitched deliveries posing a problem to most Indian players, Lehman said, “You have to make sure that you are watching the ball and not ducking your head away. And if you want to play the hook shot get inside the ball and play it at backward square.”

When a budding cricketer asked how to play a long innings and score a century, Sangakkara said, “The important thing is not to get out before you get your hundred. First get off the mark and get one run. Then its about basically doing very similar things over and over again in your innings. Watching the ball, playing according to what the ball tells you to do. Basically you are trying to get off the mark. Rotate the strike. If you get a bad ball, try to hit it for a boundary. (You have to think about) Which bowler you want to take on in your innings, when to accelerate and when to hold back.

“It is about batting and relaxing through your innings and getting every single run you can. It is about doing what you do best and doing it ball after ball until you get the hundred,” he explained.

The Sri Lankan further said it was heartening to see the kids hungry to play the game.

“Hopefully, in future they turn out be like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Zaheer Khan. They will go on if given an opportunity and play for India some day,” he said. Sangakkara-led Deccan Chargers take on host Mumbai Indians here on Sunday.

Courtesy: NDTV SPORTS

NEW DELHI: Wasim Akram’s assertion that Yusuf Pathan’s poor run in IPL 5 has been caused by his axing from the Indian team post 2011 World Cup is interesting but logic-defying.

The Pakistani legend, who is the bowling coach of Team Kolkata for which Yusuf plays in the IPL, feels that the sack led to the player losing confidence which consequently caused his horror run in the IPL this season.

Akram went on to tell the media on Monday, “Why he was dropped is beyond me. The selectors didn’t do any favour to his confidence by omitting him. Pathan is a big-match player and will surely come good.”

One wonders why Akram is so scathing on Indian selectors who dropped Yusuf only after he failed to perform despite getting a fair run in the World Cup. Yusuf’s 74 runs at 14.80 from six World Cup games tell their own story. But more than the runs, it was the way he went about his business which diminished the team management’s confidence in him.

That Suresh Raina, who replaced him midway during the World Cup, played critical knocks in the quarterfinal and semifinal to help India reach the final, only magnified Yusuf’s failure.

Everyone knows Yusuf is a gifted strokemaker who can destroy any attack on his day. But he has not done justice to his talent by being reckless in the middle. Often, he throws his wicket away by trying a low-percentage slog very early in his innings.

After starting off as a sensation – he was one of the key factors in underdogs Rajasthan winning the first IPL in 2008 – Yusuf has become a misfiring missile who now finds himself at the crossroads. It’s no use stressing “it’s how he bats and one should not tinker with his natural style.”

Clearly, his “natural style” is not serving him well. The stats tell you as much — they are high on promise, a bit short on deliverance. And if Kolkata captain Gautam Gambhir’s words are any indication, Yusuf may be in for a drop in this IPL too.

Even T20 slogging is not completely mindless. The big run makers all combine great skills with presence of mind and an awareness of match situation. And they know their game. Yusuf needs to keep his thinking cap on or else he will continue to commit hara-kiri as he has been doing, in T20 as well as in ODIs.

Akram suggests that India have lost a “match-winner” in Yusuf. The fact is the Indian ODI team has been full of match-winning batsmen like Tendulkar, Sehwag, Kohli, Dhoni, Yuvraj and Raina. Thus, losing one “match-winner” does not really dent India’s quality substantially.

If Yusuf gets back his form and consistency, India will only benefit. But that will not be achieved only through praise via the media.

Courtesy: Times of India

KOLKATA: Having won two back-to-back matches, Kolkata Knight Riders would look to continue their momentum and make full use of at least their remaining six matches at home in the ongoing Indian Premier League.

The Knight Riders slow bowlers led by left-arm spinner Shakib Al Hasan made full use of the difficult Eden Gardens track to restrict Rajasthan Royals to a paltry 131 before coasting to a five-wicket win with four balls to spare in their last game.

Knight Riders bowling consultant Wasim Akram said it was imperative to get full points from their remainder of the home games.

“It’s still a long way to go (with 13 matches remaining), but we have to use the home advantage,” Akram told reporters on the sidelines of a promotional programme.

Akram said despite their jittery, the Knight Riders have managed to peak at the right time.

“It’s a good turn around for us after two losses to start with. Mentally, we are in a strong position. I think we are peaking at the right time,” said Akram.

Courtesy: Times of India