Wasim Akram spent the best part of 20 years filleting batting lineups as the finest left-arm seamer of all time but it is only now, two decades on, that the former Pakistan captain feels comfortable discussing certain aspects of his life.
The 56-year-old is about to release Sultan, a memoir written with the Australian journalist Gideon Haigh that does not simply chart a master finessing over 900 international wickets, World Cup glory in 1992, entering Lancashire folklore and a glitzy celebrity lifestyle. Darker times are explored, including match-fixing allegations, ball-tampering headlines, a previously undisclosed cocaine addiction and the heartbreaking death of his first wife, Huma.
“It was tough to revisit those moments in my life – the betrayal, the tragedies – but the reason for doing the book wasn’t money,” says Akram, pleasantries out of the way, from his home in Karachi. It is the day of Pakistan’s shock defeat by Zimbabwe in the T20 World Cup group stages and a week before his former captain and mentor, Imran Khan, was shot on a protest march in Islamabad.
“I probably wanted to forget. I’ve been diabetic for 25 years and didn’t want the stress. But my sons are 25 and 21, my younger daughter is almost eight and it’s my story for them. And my [second] wife, Shaniera. They all wanted to know what happened, my side of the story, because they have heard stuff about me.
“People may talk about Wasim Akram, one of the best left-armers, Pakistan and Lancashire etc, and that’s how I’m generally seen by you guys in the UK. But in Pakistan the rumours persist – ‘he’s a match-fixer’ – and that hurts a lot.”
These rumours swirled around the Pakistan national team as a whole in the 1990s and were investigated at the end of the decade by Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum. After a year-long inquiry Saleem Malik, the former captain, and Ata-ur-Rehman, a seamer, were slapped with life bans. Akram was among those under the microscope and, though ultimately cleared to play on, Qayyum noted how frequently his name came up during the evidence, concluding he was “not above board”, issuing a fine and stating he should be observed closely.
The claims and counterclaims were myriad and against Akram was an allegation of trying to fix a one-day international against New Zealand in Christchurch in 1994, including offering Rehman “3-4 lakh rupees” (a lakh is 100,000) to bowl poorly; there was suspicion about his 11th-hour injury withdrawal from the 1996 World Cup quarter-final defeat by India in Bangalore; and more broadly it was said he would move himself up the batting order when captaining to manipulate play, regularly use a mobile phone in the dressing room and associated with bookmakers.
The Christchurch allegation fell apart when Rehman changed his stance, claiming he was pressured into incriminating Akram about the approach, thus perjuring himself in the process. The validity of the mystery World Cup injury was supported by the team’s physio, Dan Kiesel, while batting up the order was dismissed as a captain looking to take responsibility. Mobile phone use was met with a shrug and, as such, most of the mud did not stick.
The one “serious mistake” Akram admits to here is of being slow to realise one of his oldest school friends, Zafar Iqbal (aka Jojo), was a gambler and bookie. In this regard he was not alone on what was a naive world stage at the time. The Qayyum inquiry came in parallel with Hansie Cronje’s fall from grace and that of Mohammad Azharuddin in India, investigations that similarly lifted the rock on a sport beset by dubious hangers-on and scant anti-corruption provisions.
Akram, one of eight Pakistan players fined, says he blocked out much of this period – “It was like a trauma” – and did not read the Qayyum report until working on this book with Haigh. His conscience, he says, has always been clear. That being the case, the question is asked why players such as Rashid Latif and Aamir Sohail would drag his name into their wider claims of fixing (even if the latter, so bold in the press beforehand, clammed up during the hearing).
“I think I was the only cricketer who wasn’t friendly with these guys,” Akram replies. “After Imran Khan and Javed Miandad retired, there was no one left to control the dressing room. It was so self-destructive. Imagine me playing with people who did that to me? There was just so much distrust. The cricket board should have been stronger, with strong managers and coaches.”
Did he know or suspect games had been fixed when the allegations swirled? “You would hear things. I just used to ask: ‘How is this possible? I don’t believe it. Why would we do such a thing?’ Everyone was panicky and playing for themselves. It was a horrible time; no one trusted each other.”
While deconstructing the claims and painting the picture of a viper’s nest of a squad Akram stops short of slinging any mud in the opposite direction. Khan’s nickname for Saleem Malik – “the Rat” – is said to fit because he was “sneaky, untrustworthy and often unpleasant to deal with”, while Rehman is “not the brightest crayon in the box”. But otherwise there is no sense of revenge. Akram says he last saw Malik “five years ago” when invited to his daughter’s wedding but they were never close as players.
“He was a guy that you never trust. People change over time, though. I just don’t know him now,” he adds. “I have moved on in life, my father taught me to forgive and forget. I don’t burn bridges or seek revenge, life is very short.”
Another intriguing relationship is that with Waqar Younis. They were arguably fast bowling perfection as a duo, a remarkable left-right alliance that could transcend even the flattest pitches through reverse swing. Yet in the book, Akram revisits the first of his four spells as captain that ended in 1993 when nine players – including Waqar, then vice-captain – swore on the Quran never to play under him again, ushering in Malik’s subsequently sullied tenure.
It is an episode that sums up the fraught, political nature of a Pakistan squad forever bouncing from one series to the next in the kind of exhausting fashion that leads modern players to drop formats. “In all my terms of captaincy, virtually every deputy I had was concealing a dagger,” writes Akram, which raises the question of how he and Waqar fared off the field.
“We were OK,” he replies. “We had good days, bad days, but we were like siblings, not jealous but competitive. But instead of waiting for their turn, [Pakistan vice-captains] have players around them – a gang – saying: ‘It’s your turn, you are the best captain.’ Waqar was a kid who made mistakes. I made mistakes. As human beings, we all do.
“We have been working together recently, actually, commentating and doing a World Cup show. I told him I had written a book, there was nothing personal about anyone, it’s just my side of the story and he said that’s fine.”
There is little question about the highlight of Akram’s career, the starring role in the 1992 World Cup final that he says “changed the mindset of cricket in Pakistan”. He also became a firm favourite in English cricket over 10 years at Lancashire. Speaking at a time when the sport here is grappling with its continuing racism crisis, I ask if he ever experienced anything of the kind.
“Never,” he replies. “I was one of them and that’s what I loved. I was 21, had never lived abroad and my accountant told me to get a house. The secretary of the club, Rose, she got me all the crockery. The boys would pop in if I needed anything and my captain, Jack Simmons, was very helpful, as were Athers [Mike Atherton] and Harvey [Neil Fairbrother]. I never felt anything like [racism] in Lancashire.”
As well as 370 wickets and more than 3,000 runs in the County Championship, Akram enjoyed his life off the field in Manchester and London. At first he drank milk at the bar after games before eventually getting a taste for alcohol and a good time. But after retiring in 2003 Akram struggled to strike the right balance, developing a cocaine addiction that filled the void of his absent sporting highs.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do in my future,” he says. “I got into the wrong company, I hurt my late wife very much in that period. With addiction you can’t think about anything else. It was the worst time of my life.”
Despite a failed spell in a bleak Lahore rehab centre – the details of which are grimly recalled in the book – Akram eventually kicked the habit shortly before Huma, whose influence during his career is clear, died suddenly following complications from an undetected, rare infection called mucormycosis. “That tragedy changed everything,” he says, with an understandably heavy sigh.
Since then Akram has found contentment through his children’s achievements and the love of Shaniera, the Australian he met in 2007. He will be a television pundit for England’s forthcoming Test tour and before we wrap I ask how he thinks Bazball, the attacking brio brought in under Ben Stokes and the head coach, Brendon McCullum, will fare on the pitches of Rawalpindi, Multan and Karachi. “I think England are favourites, because they can bowl reverse swing,” comes the reply. “Jimmy Anderson is one of the best of all time at it. And I want them to bring that style of cricket to Pakistan. Although I’m not sure our team could play like that – there would be headlines calling for Baz to be sacked within weeks!”
It is a cliche of sorts, the kind that tends to follow the frenzied world of Pakistani cricket. But after a life in the headlines himself, few are more qualified to make it than the Sultan of Swing.
Sultan: A Memoir by Wasim Akram with Gideon Haigh (£18.99, ISBN: 9781743798690) will be published by Hardie Grant on 10 November 2022
