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The year 1998 did not merely mark a season in Pakistan cricket; it marked a recalibration of identity.
For nearly a decade, Pakistan’s fast-bowling mythology had revolved around two initials: W & W. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were not just strike bowlers, they were a doctrine. Reverse swing weaponized. Yorkers perfected. New-ball hostility institutionalized. Together, they defined Pakistan’s cricketing self-image in the 1990s: aggressive, unpredictable, lethal.
By 1998, however, time had begun its quiet erosion.
Wasim’s body bore the memory of relentless workloads. Injuries interrupted rhythm; off-field controversies blurred authority. Waqar, once the destroyer-in-chief of the early 1990s, no longer operated at unbroken high voltage. His pace had dipped marginally, but at elite level, marginal decline becomes visible vulnerability. The yorker that once found toes unerringly now occasionally drifted. The aura remained—but aura without execution is fragile currency.
Pakistan stood at a crossroads familiar to sporting dynasties: how long does loyalty outweigh renewal?
Wasim’s Return and the Burden of Decision
When Wasim Akram reclaimed the captaincy from Aamir Sohail in late 1998, he inherited more than tactical responsibility. He inherited transition.
The impending tour of India amplified the stakes. India–Pakistan cricket is never isolated from politics; it is layered with memory and nationalism. For the first time, Indian crowds would witness the fabled “Two Ws” operating together on Indian soil, confronting the era’s defining batsman, Sachin Tendulkar.
Wasim responded like a craftsman rediscovering sharpness. His angles were clever, his wrist position immaculate, his control of reverse swing theatrical yet precise. He bowled like a leader reasserting relevance.
Waqar struggled.
Apart from one spirited burst in Chennai, his spells lacked sustained menace. The ball did not hurry batsmen as it once had. The intimidation factor, so central to his early career, felt diluted. Against a technically disciplined Indian lineup, slight imprecision was punished.
Pakistan’s dilemma sharpened: sentiment versus ruthlessness.
The Dropping of a Legend
By the time the teams arrived in Kolkata for the inaugural Asian Test Championship match, Wasim faced a decision that would define the moment.
Dropping Waqar Younis was not merely a selection call. It was symbolic rupture. Few fast bowlers had shaped Pakistan’s cricketing imagination like him. Yet Pakistan’s cricket culture, for all its emotional volatility, has historically been unsentimental in pursuit of advantage.
Waqar was left out.
In his place emerged a name spoken more in whispers than headlines: Shoaib Akhtar.
The Wild Card
Shoaib was not a finished product. He was velocity personified.
Within domestic circuits and Pakistan A tours, stories preceded him: curfew breaches, restless nights abroad, club cricket in Ireland punctuated by Dublin slang and pub folklore. He was a maverick temperament housed inside a sprinter’s body.
But beneath the theatrics lay something elemental, extreme pace.
In Durban earlier in 1998, he had produced a spell that dismantled South Africa and hinted at international consequence. Comparisons with Allan Donald were inevitable. Wasim himself acknowledged the distinction bluntly: Waqar, at his peak, matched the pace, but Shoaib’s bouncer was quicker.
Raw pace changes geometry. It shortens reaction time. It destabilizes technique. It creates doubt before skill intervenes.
At Eden Gardens, doubt would arrive at 150 kilometres per hour.
Eden Gardens: Theatre and Tremor
Kolkata’s Eden Gardens is less stadium than amphitheatre. Ninety thousand voices do not watch; they judge.
On the first evening, Shoaib offered a preview, removing VVS Laxman with a searing inswinger that hinted at late movement and higher gears. It was a warning shot, not yet the earthquake.
The earthquake arrived the following afternoon.
India, steady at 147 for two, appeared in control. Rahul Dravid and Sadagoppan Ramesh were methodical, reducing Pakistan’s modest 185 to manageable arithmetic. Drinks were taken. Rhythm paused.
Session breaks often reset neurological tempo. Wasim sensed the moment and turned to volatility.
Shoaib ran in.
The first delivery to Dravid was full, angling in before tailing viciously. Dravid, a technician of rare calibration, brought his bat down, but pace defeats perfection when it arrives half a fraction early. Leg stump uprooted.
The sound was abrupt. The crowd inhaled.
Next ball: Tendulkar.
In India, Tendulkar’s walk to the crease is ceremonial. The stadium rose in collective affirmation. He adjusted his guard, composed, contained.
Shoaib did not reduce his stride.
The ball was full again, but this time reversing late, almost insolently. Tendulkar shaped to drive, trusting length. The ball curved inward at the last possible instant. Middle stump lay displaced.
For a moment, Eden Gardens fell into disbelieving silence.
Two deliveries. Two pillars.
It was not just a double strike; it was symbolic dethronement. The established order breached by velocity.
Hostility as Statement
The theatre did not end there. When captain Mohammad Azharuddin arrived, Shoaib’s response was primal, a steep bouncer crashing into the helmet. This was not swing artistry; this was intimidation.
By spell’s end, his figures read 4 for 71. Yet statistics understate seismic effect.
He had done something rare: shifted psychological balance within minutes. India’s dominance had evaporated. Pakistan’s belief reawakened. The crowd’s certainty fractured.
The Changing of Pace
In the stands sat Waqar Younis, architect of toe-crushing yorkers, pioneer of reverse swing carnage. He had once been the future disrupting elders.
Now he witnessed his own succession.
Transitions in sport are rarely ceremonial. They are abrupt, sometimes brutal. At Eden Gardens, Pakistan’s fast-bowling lineage pivoted from craft refined to force unleashed.
Shoaib Akhtar was not the polished strategist Wasim was. He was not yet the clinical destroyer Waqar had been. He was volatility, ambition, speed without ceiling.
His career would oscillate, brilliance intertwined with controversy, injury, disciplinary questions. But that afternoon in Kolkata distilled his essence: when rhythm aligned with aggression, he was unplayable.
Beyond the Spell
The dropping of Waqar was not an indictment of greatness past. It was acknowledgment of time’s inevitability.
Pakistan cricket, historically allergic to gradual transition, prefers rupture. It discards gently declining giants and gambles on raw extremes. Sometimes recklessly. Occasionally prophetically.
In Kolkata, the gamble paid.
Cricket had not simply discovered a fast bowler. It had rediscovered fear.
And Pakistan, standing between fading legend and untested velocity, had chosen the storm.
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
