Shoaib Akhtar: “Had it not been Ricky Ponting … I would have chopped his [the batsman’s] head off because it was furiously fast”
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Recalling a “furiously fast” spell he unleashed in 1999, Pakistan fast bowling king Shoaib Akhtar said if anyone else had been batting other than Australia legend Ricky Ponting, he would have chopped their head off.
Akhtar is known for being devastatingly quick and still holds the record to this day for the fastest ball bowled in international cricket, which was clocked at 161.3 kph in 2003.
However, the spell he was talking about came during Pakistan’s tour of Australia in 1999, where the Baggy Greens won the Test series 3-0.
In the third Test in Perth, the Rawalpindi Express wanted to unsettle the Australian batsmen and decided to use his lethal pace to do that.
However, Ponting refused to succumb to the fiery pace Akhtar was bowling with and instead put on a masterclass as he scored a breathtaking 197, which came off 288 balls and included 22 boundaries.
“Had it not been Ricky Ponting … I would have chopped his [the batsman’s] head off because it was furiously fast,” Akhtar was quoted as saying by the Brisbane Times.