Waqar Younis opens up about his rivalry with Wasim Akram

Aug 5, 2016 at 11:26 AM

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Waqar Younis opens up about his rivalry with Wasim Akram

Rivalries have made cricket a far richer sport as when two professional cricketers compete; the overall outcome is some high-quality cricket which leads to the elation of cricket fans throughout the globe. Over the years gone by, viewers and fans have witnessed some enthralling rivalries between bowlers of different teams and the will to outplay one another has often resulted in a sheer spectacle.

However, the equation completely changes when that rivalry is translated to one within a team. Intense competition within teammates is bound to have an impact upon the overall team without a doubt. The rivalry between pace legends Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram was a delight for all cricket lovers, and their ultimate will to outdo one another benefitted Pakistan the most, as they ended up make a mockery of the opposition batting.

Conversely, this rivalry also took a toll in the dressing room as there were several ego clashes. In a recent interaction with ESPN Cricinfo, Younis admitted that he regrets his rivalry with Akram. “I am really good friends with Wasim Bhai, he has always been an elder brother,” Waqar said. “He has always supported and helped me on the field, off the field. Yeah, we had issues. He didn’t only have issues with me but we had issues in the team those days, which yes if you ask me the truth, yes I do regret at times because you know it did not really help Pakistan cricket,” the king of yorker said.

“We wanted to compete with each other, we wanted to take more wickets than the other one and I think in a way, it did help. But yeah, if you ask me that particular episode, yes, we all regret it because it shouldn’t have happened. It was ugly those days but those days we were younger and we didn’t know much, now we are probably wiser and we want to improve things. Yeah, you can say that it was a regret,” the former Pakistan coach added.

“But then again if you look at it, we had issues off the field but when we walked onto the field it was different ball game altogether,” Younis concluded.

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