The Interview Series — Wasim Akram
Dhaka, gym bodies and the ch****a in the lift
This is the first in a series of articles where I’ll be looking back at the most memorable interviews I did across two decades. By that, I don’t mean the actual questions and answers, but how they were done, and what I gained from those interactions. And what better place to start than right at the beginning?
It was my first big job, and I’d only been at my desk three weeks when the question was popped. “Do you have a passport?”
The next thing I knew, I was packing my bags and heading to Dhaka for the Asia Cup. A colleague, Amit Karmarkar, was already there and doing most of the match coverage. My task was to ghost columns for Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram.
They say you never forget your first time. I certainly won’t. It took upward of half an hour in the Dhaka traffic to reach the team hotel from the exotically named La Vinci, where we were staying. My editor back in Mumbai had liaised with Akram and given me a time to get to the hotel. At reception, I called his room. He told me he’d wait for me outside the lift on his floor.
When I got into the elevator, the first person I saw was Lt.-Gen. Tauqir Zia, then president of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). It took me a few seconds to muster up the courage to say hello. When I then asked if he would be willing to do an interview, he agreed and gave me a time. As he walked away on reaching his floor, I told myself: “Wow, that was easy.”
At that point, I was joined in the lift by a famous journalist, someone whose books and articles I had read as I eased my way into the profession. He too was extremely cordial, and by the time I reached Akram’s floor, we had agreed to talk again.
Up close, Akram was massive, especially his arms, as he stood there wearing a sleeveless top and shorts. “You’re Dileep?” he asked as I stepped out. Once I said yes, he grabbed me by the arm and moved me away from the lift, the doors of which were just closing. “I hope you weren’t talking to that ch****a,” he told me. Noting my bemusement, he nodded in the direction of the lift. “The great journalist. Takes off-the-record quotes, and makes them headlines in his articles.”
All of this was said in a mixture of English and Hindi, with the odd Urdu word thrown in. I’ve ghosted columns for several players since — Michael Holding, who would carefully proof-read everything you wrote on his behalf, was undoubtedly the best — but few were as easy to work with as Akram.
To say that I was wary would have been an understatement. Bear in mind that this was just over a month after the Delhi Police had blown the whistle on Hansie Cronje. In Pakistan, the Justice Qayyum Report had come out. One of its recommendations was that Akram be removed as captain, given that he was “too sullied to hold that office”.
Growing up, he had been a cricket hero, with the spell in the 1992 World Cup final prominent in my highlights reel. Along with Malcolm Marshall, he remains the most skillful fast bowler I’ve seen. Glenn McGrath and Dale Steyn were more consistent, but Akram was capable of the kind of magic beyond the imagination of most others.
To view such a man through suspicious eyes hurt. The office had already told me not to talk of the Qayyum Report and its ramifications, but the bloke in front of me didn’t give any impression of being in the metaphorical dock. He was relaxed, friendly, and extremely helpful. Over the years, I’ve come across other legends, who would grudgingly give you two or three sentences and then expect you to pad up the remaining words while they pocketed a fat cheque. Akram was nothing like that. He had no pretensions of being a writer, but he gave you plenty of material, and some amazing vignettes into how he worked out batsmen.
The first day, I remember staring open-mouthed as he launched into a detailed analysis of the previous game. I took in the room, the muscular figure in repose, and the earnestness with which he was explaining things to me. After a while, he must have spotted that I had zoned out. “Are you okay?” he asked. Back in the land of the living, I realised that I hadn’t switched my dictaphone on. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “Can we do that again, from the beginning?”
“Relax” he told me. “Let’s smoke a cigarette. Then we’ll start over.”
Despite that Johan Cruyff-like fondness for tobacco, what impressed me most was his commitment to fitness. This was after he had been diagnosed with diabetes, and he was on the verge of turning 34. But even on match days, he would return to the hotel and go straight to the gym. He told me that Imran Khan had been a big influence in that regard, and his own example inspired most of his teammates to follow suit. Pakistan won the tournament, and were by far the fittest team in Dhaka as well.
By the time we met next, in Australia in December 2003, he had swapped the creams and green kit for a place in the commentary box. Along with Shastri, he was doing the Shaz and Waz Show, while also providing valuable insights on what went on in the middle. Again, he was always friendly and cheerful, and the rapport with Shastri, both on and off air, was unmistakable.
Our paths have crossed several times over the years, but it’s Dhaka that I’ll always remember. He was already a legend of the game. But despite everything hanging over his head at the time, the way he treated a cub reporter said so much about the kind of person he is. A true champion.
Originally published at http://dileeppremachandran.wordpress.com on April 16, 2020.