Pakistan has produced some of the fastest and fearsome fast bowlers in the world cricket. From Waqar Younis to Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistan’s fast bowlers have troubled batsmen across the world for many years.
The Pakistani pacers possessed some fearsome speed while bowling. Talking about speed, Shoaib Akhtar was the first person to bowl 160 kmph in international cricket. He did this feat against England in the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
Apart from Akhtar, some Australian bowlers, including Brett Lee and Shaun Tait, have also bowled at a speed of 160 kmph. Although Mohammad Sami, a former Pakistan bowler has now claimed that he bowled the fastest delivery in international cricket, but the International Cricket Council (ICC) considered it to be a speed gun fault and did not officially recognize it.
The incident which the Pakistani pacer has mentioned here when Sami bowled a quick delivery to Rahul Dravid in an ODI match in 2004, which was clocked at a speed of 164 Kilometers Per Hour (101 MPH).
However, later the ICC said that there was a defect in the speed gun which was showing the wrong number.
Sami told Pak TV, “I had bowled 164 KMPH and 162 KMPH in International cricket but unfortunately the International Cricket Council (ICC) claimed that the bowling machine was not in right working condition at that time.” At the same time, the current record of Akhtar, who bowled against England 19 years ago at a speed of 161.3 kilometers per hour, is the still the fastest delivery to have ever been bowled in International cricket.
As for Sami, he played over 100 matches in his career across all formats. He played 36 Test matches and picked up 85 wickets, 121 wickets from 87 One Day International (ODI) and 21 wickets from 13 T20 Internationals (T20Is).
