I felt like he would kill me, says Tamim
Bangladesh ODI captain Tamim Iqbal held an online meet up with former captains Naiumur Rahman Durjoy, Khaled Mahmud and Habibul Bashar as part of his effort to keep people entertained while under lockdown due to coronavirus. The four captains jogged their memory lanes for various events and when the 2003 Multan Test was brought up, so came up Shoaib Akhtar's brutal fast bowling.
Shoaib did not play the Multan Test but he bowled some fiery spells in the prior two Tests and had got 10 wickets at Peshwar. Mahmud was one of the batters who fought back along with the lower middle-order batsmen at Peshwar in the first innings. He struck 25 and was the last Bangladesh wicket to fall in that innings, out off Shoaib.
He said that he still has a hard time explaining what transpired when facing the world's quickest bowler. "I still can't make people believe that I didn't even see the first ball that Shoaib Akhter bowled."
Tamim is a batsman who is used to taking the attack to bowlers but he further substantiated the kind of pace that Shoaib generated during his career.
"It's not just you, it happened to a lot of people," Tamim remembered.
"I always say this, I have played many fast bowlers, and played bowlers bowling at 150 km per hour but there was only one time that I was scared when I went out to bat, it was when I faced Shoaib Akhter for the first time. That day I felt like he would kill me," Tamim recalled.
"He was so scary," Tamim added.
Tamim came up against Shoaib twice in his career, once in Kenya during a tri-nation tournament and another time in 2010 Asia Cup. Akhter was able to get Tamim's wicket during the first encounter between the two.
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