Waqar Younis and the toe-crushing yorker
Waqar Younis made reverse swing and the full, fast yorker into a weapon that redrew the boundaries of fast bowling. Alongside Wasim Akram he formed one of the most feared new-ball pairings the game has seen.
A debut like no other
Waqar Younis made his Test debut for Pakistan against India at the National Stadium in Karachi in November 1989, the same match in which a sixteen-year-old Sachin Tendulkar made his own debut for India, and took 4 wickets in the match. It was the start of a career that ran to 87 Tests and 373 wickets, built almost entirely on raw, skiddy pace and a mastery of reverse swing that, along with his new-ball partner Wasim Akram, changed how fast bowling was taught and played for a generation afterwards. His final Test came against South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town in 2003.
The yorker
Waqar Younis's signature delivery was the full, fast inswinging yorker, aimed at a batter's toes with an old, roughed-up ball, a delivery that became so associated with him that it earned him the nickname the Burewala Express, after his hometown. Bowled at genuine pace and late-swinging into the base of off stump or the batter's boots, it was almost impossible to defend once it had been set up by a spell of shorter, faster deliveries earlier in the over. The tactic of reverse-swinging an old ball, which Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram did as effectively as any pair in the sport's history, was viewed with suspicion by some opponents at the time and later became standard practice across the world game.
Waqar Younis bowled with an unusually low, slinging arm for a fast bowler of his pace, which added to the difficulty batters had reading his length early, and he built entire spells around a batter's footwork rather than simply bowling as fast as possible at a fixed line, working the yorker in only once he had a batter driving away from his body or anticipating the short ball.
Wasim and Waqar
Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram bowled together for Pakistan through most of the 1990s, a new-ball partnership that took wickets in clusters on pitches of every kind, and their combined reputation made Pakistan's pace attack the one visiting batters feared most in that decade. New Zealand were a frequent early opponent for Waqar Younis: 13 Tests, 70 wickets, and it was against New Zealand, in Faisalabad in 1990, that he took his career-best Test figures of 7 for 76, early confirmation of how quickly he had established himself among Pakistan's leading bowlers.
Sri Lanka were his second most frequent opponent by wickets, 13 Tests, 56 wickets, with West Indies close behind on 13 Tests and 55 wickets, a spread that shows him taking wickets against every kind of opposition batting line-up, from the spin-friendly pitches of the subcontinent to the pace-heavy conditions of the Caribbean, in an era before Pakistan's home cricket was forced abroad.
Twin seven-fors
Waqar Younis took two seven-wicket hauls within days of each other in October 1990, 7 for 86 against New Zealand at Lahore and, in the very next Test, 7 for 76 against the same opponents at Faisalabad, a stretch that announced him fully as a strike bowler capable of running through a side twice in a fortnight. His best match figures, 13 for 135 against Zimbabwe at Karachi in 1993, remain his most dominant single Test performance on the archive, part of a run in the early 1990s in which he and Wasim Akram were as destructive a pair as any in the format.
Captaincy
Waqar Younis captained Pakistan in 17 Tests in the archive, winning 10 and losing 7, taking on the role at various points through the mid and late 1990s in a period of frequent changes in the Pakistan captaincy. He was named Player of the Match 6 times across his career, and later returned to the Pakistan set-up as head coach, taking charge of the national side on two separate occasions after his playing career ended, extending his influence on Pakistan cricket well beyond his own bowling.
National Stadium Karachi and Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore were his two most-visited home grounds, 7 Tests apiece, a reminder of the years before the security situation forced Pakistan cricket into exile, when Waqar Younis was still able to bowl his home Tests on the fast, true pitches of his own country rather than on the slower surfaces later Pakistani fast bowlers had to adapt to.
The numbers
The full record: 87 Tests, 373 wickets at an average of 23.56, with best innings figures of 7 for 76 and best match figures of 13 for 135. He took a five-wicket haul 22 times and a ten-wicket match haul on 5 occasions, both substantial totals from a career shortened by injuries to his knees and back later on. He was not a specialist batter, but useful enough in the lower order to make 1,010 runs at a batting average around 10, with a highest score of 45. Pakistan won 39 of the 87 Tests he played, lost 26 and drew 22, and his best decade by wickets was the 1990s, 273 wickets from 56 Tests, the heart of his career alongside Wasim Akram. He remained a strike bowler to the end of his career rather than fading into a defensive, containing role, a testament to how well his body held up to the demands of extreme pace bowling across more than a decade at the top level. Even in his final seasons, with his pace no longer quite what it had been at his peak, he continued to trouble batters with the same full, late-swinging length that had made his name, evidence that the skill behind the yorker was never solely about raw speed.
Sources
- CricArcade Test archive: Waqar Younis's full career record and scorecard links
- ESPNcricinfo: Waqar Younis player profile and Test career statistics
- Wikipedia: Waqar Younis