Shoaib Akhtar's Colombo Heroics.

It was October 5th, 2002 when the third day's play between Pakistan and Australia was in progress on the neutral territory of Colombo. It was the first test match of the series in which Pakistan were forced to play an almost second string side because players like Saeed Anwar, Inzamam ul Haq, Muhammad Yousuf and Wasim Akram were available due to certain reasons.

The weather was extreme hot and humid as is usually associated with Sri Lanka's atmosphere. Australia had dominated the match as expected scoring 467 in the first innings and bowling out Pakistan's inexperience batting line up for 279 by lunch on the third day's play gaining a lead of 188. Just a good total in the second innings and Australia would have wrapped it up easily.

The second innings started the usual way when Australia were cruising along at 74/1 after 20 overs stretching their lead to 262 runs with 9 wickets remaining. The ball was old enough for reverse swing on the dry pitch, so Shoaib Akhtar was reintroduced to the attack and everything changed after that.

As Charlie Austin quoted during the match report " Racing into bowl, charged with aggression, his long shiny black locks flowing behind him, Akhtar worked up tremendous pace on a pitch that has provided little assistance to the fast bowlers, producing a succession of in swinging thunderbolts that ripped the heart out of Australia's batting. "

Shoaib Akhtar completely destroyed the Australian batting line up with extreme pace and swing grabbing 5 wickets for just 8 runs in the 15 ball spell which lasted almost 30 minutes. First to go was Ricky Ponting who dragged the ball onto his stumps on a ball that should have been punished for four. But the best was yet to come, the very next ball Mark Waugh was clean bowled on a ferocious in-swinging delivery.

Steve Waugh was the next batsman who could only just survive the hat-trick ball but was lbw on the very next ball by another speedy in-swinger by Akhtar. Adam Gilchrist survived the first 5 balls of the next over by Shoaib which included a boundary but the last ball of the over was perhaps the best ball of the spell, a scorching yorker that rocketed into Australia's most dangerous batsman and hit the base of his leg stump even before the bat could come down. Shane Warne was the last of 5 victims of Shoaib Akhtar who was trapped lbw.

Suddenly Australia were 89/7 and eventually were bowled out for 127 which was at that time their lowest ever total against Pakistan. Although after a close fight Pakistan ended up losing the match by 41 runs but  Shoaib Akhtar completed his fifth five-for during his 22nd Test Match which was rated by Wisden as one of Test Cricket's greatest short spells.