Rawalpindi Express pulls into London

As cricket’s County Championship tries to build to a climax in the brief passages of play between rain delays there was no doubt a special buzz of excitement at the Oval yesterday as a newcomer made a belated entry to the competition.

The cricketer in question was fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, who has agreed to join strugglers Surrey for their remaining handful of games.

The Rawalpindi Express has had a remarkable career, with no shortage of ups and downs.

The latest high profile incident saw Shoaib banned for five years by the Pakistan Cricket Board for publicly criticising the body after he was axed from its list of centrally contracted players.

The ban was reduced to 18-months by an appeal committee, but Shoaib is due to challenge that as well as the seven million rupee fine imposed.

He is a man who has never shirked controversy, with a history involving drug scandals and walk-outs, but he will always pull in the crowds.

At 33, injuries have taken their toll and there is little doubt that greater focus on his game may have seen him perform to an even higher level, but he has one massive draw that thrills spectators and coaches alike – raw speed.

Cricket is, like most sports, essentially a very simple game and the greatest pleasures from the watching it is derived from seeing the ball move as fast as it can – whether out of the hand of the bowler or flying off the blade of a big hitting batsman.

Devotees of crafty spinners like Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne may disagree with this view but rarely has the imagination of cricket followers around the world been captured in the way the Rawalpindi Express burst onto the stage, announcing his ambition to bowl a 100mph ball.

He first caught my imagination at the 1999 World Cup.

I remember him charging in to bowl his first ball from that ridiculously long run up and hurling the ball at West Indian opener Sherwin Campbell.

The left-hander barely saw the ball as it pitched short then flicked off his bat and flew over the boundary rope at third man for six.

Yes it may have been a six but this was what Shoaib was all about – entertainment and showmanship.

Shoaib knocked out Campbell’s stumps in his next over and went on to become a star of the tournament.

A couple of years later he achieved his aim of breaking the 100mph barrier and was even feared by the Australians in his pomp.

But for all his talent, his career has always been one of fits and starts, it seems the pace at which he operated simply could not be sustained either by his body or his mind.

He has given us though, in those short bursts, some of the most spectacular cricket of the modern era and up there with the most memorable.

Averages of 25 with the ball in test cricket and 23 at One Day are impressive but nowadays a cricketer of his ability should play more than 48 tests.

But not all players should be judged by their statistics and should be remembered in a different way, as the entertainers they are.