The Match
England 321-8 (Knight 124*; Akhtar 4-41)
Pakistan 134 (Anderson 5-33, White 5-21)
England won by 187 runs
The Cast
Shoaib Akhtar
Brett Lee
Nick Knight
James Anderson
Dennis Lillee
Jeff Thomson
The 2022 Fast Bowler’s Convention is in full swing. The camera pans around the room to reveal the pacemen of past and present chatting away.
DL: ’Ere Thommo, do you know who this ‘special guest’ is supposed to be?
JT: Not a scooby Lil’, though I just seen Waqar by the vol-au-vents and he reckons it’s Obama!
DL: Obama? Pffft. As if he knows anything about cricket. Makhaya reckons it’s Mick Jagger.
JT: Mick does love his cricket. Their conversation is interrupted by raised voices elsewhere in the room.
SA: Shoaib was the fastest! Everyone knew it. No one could compete with Shoaib.
SA:
Silence! HOW DARE YOU! There was nothing wrong with that speed gun! Shoaib got
to 100mph first and beat you all! Jeff Thomson, Lasith Malinga, Shane Bond (the
three named bowlers stop their conversations and look around) ...
you took one hell of a beating! (Shoaib
beats
his mighty chest.): Sorry mate, are you referring to yourself in the third person?
SA: Ah Binga, Binga, Binga. You’ll never learn, eh? Always trying to catch up with The Shoaib but never quite succeeding.
The early Noughties had seen a 'pace race’ develop as the world’s fastest bowlers strove to become the first in history to be recorded a t 100mph. Some took it more seriously than others.
JA: Oh, he’s The Shoaib now?
SA: Another young pretender showing disrespect! I remember you when you were just a tadpole, Jimmy. A tadpole with a red streak in your barnet and a dodgy radar!
JA: Well, I’m 40 now, I’ve got nearly 700 Test wickets.
SA: Bowling your 80mph piffle wiffle. Where’s your pace man! Pathetic.
BL: Talking of dodgy radars, that speed gun in Cape Town looked pretty primitive to me...
JA: It looked like a yoghurt pot on a piece of string, and I swear it had the Pakistani flag on it.
SA: Silence! HOW DARE YOU! There was nothing wrong with that speed gun! Shoaib got to 100mph first and beat you all! Jeff Thomson, Lasith Malinga, Shane Bond (the three named bowlers stop their conversations and look around) ... you took one hell of a beating! (Shoaib beats his mighty chest.)
The ‘special guest’ enters the room. It’s Nick Knight, dressed in an expensive athleisure tracksuit, wearing a baseball cap and laden with bling. Each item of clothing is emblazoned with ‘The White Knight’ in gold lamé lettering.
ABOVE: After dispatching Shoaib, Knight became the preeminent white-ball player of his era
“After being purchased for a record sum by Kolkata Knight Riders in the inaugural IPL, Knight smashed 158 on opening night to cement his status as a white-ball king
NK: Fellas.
Knight removes his designer shades with a flourish in the style of a leg-side flick. Shoaib stares at the floor, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.
His bowling boots lightly clack on the tiles. Knight works the room, shaking hands and fist-bumping the coterie of fast bowlers. He points and smiles at Shaun Tait, ruffles Nantie Hayward’s hair. Finally, he reaches Shoaib.
NK: Here he is, my old adversary! The 100mph man! The Rawalpindi Tram, as I call him. He loves it… You’re not telling everyone how fast and scary you were that day at Cape Town, are you?
SA: Ha, I wasn’t!
BL & JA: He was. He was.
NK: Don’t let me stop you pal…
Shoaib had trained obsessively before the 2003 World Cup, desperate to reach the fabled landmark. Having blown away Namibia, he was primed to put his name in the history books when Pakistan encountered England at Newlands.
After being overlooked in favour of Nasser Hussain throughout England’s disastrous 1999 World Cup campaign, Knight was determined to make his mark in a global tournament. By the fourth over, Shoaib was delivering some serious heat. The final delivery would become one of the most famous in cricket history.
SA: The stage was set. I was limber, loose, feeling good. It was time for The Shoaib to clock up his ton. I ran in, wind in my hair, a sense of destiny on my broad, muscular shoulders. I just felt like it was meant to be…
Shoaib released the ball at lightning speed, the gun clocking it at 100.2mph.
It was on a fullish leg-stump line and Knight… simply flicked it off his toes and into the stands for a huge six.
NK: That’s how I roll.
The crowd went wild as they realised what they had just witnessed. Knight nonchalantly patted the pitch as Shoaib sank to his knees in disbelief. The England opener went on to score a majestic century, celebrating wildly when he reached the landmark. Thrusting his bat towards the dressing room and media centre, Knight turned and jabbed at the No.1 on his back.
NK: So shoot me. I was pumped. I think I proved my point.
It was the start of a purple patch for Knight as he built a reputation for clobbering the fastest bowlers for huge sixes.
‘The faster they come, the further they go.’ (Knight turns round to show the motto emblazoned on the back of his tracksuit. He then rolls up a sleeve to reveal a heavily inked bicep.) I’ve got it written in Sanskrit here, too. Which is cool. Anyway, I’m on in a min, who wants a drink first? (Knight starts to peel away.)
Hey, Curtly! You haven’t aged a day, how’s the family? They well?
After being purchased for a record sum by Kolkata Knight Riders in the inaugural IPL in 2008, Knight smashed 158 on opening night to cement his status as a white-ball king. Meanwhile, Shoaib was crushed that his record-breaking delivery had been overshadowed and went to increasingly bizarre lengths to try and find an extra yard of pace, including training at altitude in the foothills above Kathmandu and several years spent wearing leadlined shoelaces.
SA: I might not play international cricket anymore but I’m still training, trying to beat the speedo. I know I can go even quicker. Just wait, you’ll see, you’ll all see.
Shoaib delivers this final broadside to precisely no one, the rest of the fastbowling contingent having moved away and gathered around Knight, hanging on his every word.
SA:
(Sighs a wistful sigh) How did he hit it for six? It was so fast. All that work, all that effort and strain, and for what?
Knight is being carried around on Mitchell Johnson’s shoulders. Fidel Edwards hands him a drink.
NK: Hey Shoaib, get over here! Shoaib?
The fast bowler has gone. The clitterclatter of spikes and throaty sobs growing more distant, drowned out by the sound of the revelry.
BELOW: Shoaib Akhtar’s pace was no match for Nick Knight