Akhtar’s express delivery fails to get official nod

Shoaib Akhtar’s 100 mile an hour delivery at the weekend, the first ever recorded, will remain unofficial, an International Cricket Cou...

Shoaib Akhtar’s 100 mile an hour delivery at the weekend, the first ever recorded, will remain unofficial, an International Cricket Council (ICC) spokesman said on Monday.

The 26-year-old Pakistan fast bowler was clocked at 161 kilometres an hour, a fraction over the 100 miles an hour mark, during the third one-day international against New Zealand on Saturday.

“These things are pretty unofficial,” ICC spokesman Mark Harrison said. “There is no official ICC policy but we do regard it as an interesting part of the game. If it creates interest and spectator entertainment that’s agood thing.”

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Harrison said there was a possibility the ICC could introduce a fast bowling table as part of its impending players’ rankings.

“It could be a part of it,” he said. “We are looking at the whole issue.”

Akhtar’s feat, the cricketing equivalent of the first sub-four minute mile, was announced in a terse statement by the Pakistan Cricket Board at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

“According to the speed gun operated in the ground by a sponsor, Shoaib Akhtar bowled a delivery as a speed of 161 kph (100.04),” the statement said. The speed gun operated by the host broadcasting company was out of order.

(Reuters)

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