By Nasser Khan (December 10th, 2013)

Waqar Younis is to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame next week and the news caused me to recall a time when he was at his devastating best, the summer of 1992. Waqar Younis is the reason I started watching cricket. I first saw him as a child during Pakistan’s tour of England that year and it was love at first yorker. Back then I didn’t know much about cricket, but something in the way he bound to the crease and catapulted himself and the ball towards the opposition batsmen after coming off a bounding run-up was and still remains, for me, the most thrilling sight in sport. Playing cricket on the street back then I could only bowl one proper delivery, the inswinging yorker.

Although it was his pace that initially drew my attention, as I grew to understand the game it was the attacking line he bowled which was his greatest strength and occasionally his greatest weakness. He would pitch the ball right up to the batsman, the cherry screaming drive me if you think your good enough. To bowl that line requires a bowler to be brave, as he's effectively inviting the world’s top batsmen to drive, a shot most skilled batters are masters of. This was at a time when bowlers were experiencing greater success by dropping short.

Martin Crowe, one of the top batsmen in the world at the time, said he was the best combination of pace and swing he'd ever seen. In 1992, Crowe decided to wear a helmet with a grill for the first time in his career when facing Waqar on placid Pakistani pitches, something he hadn't done even against the West Indies side at that time.

It wasn't just his pace, Waqar had a fighting spirit, always believing he could change a game. He didn't have the vulgarity of his contemporaries and certainly wouldn't engage in the kind of antics we see from the fast bowlers operating today.

In the aforementioned series in England in 1992, Waqar took 22 wickets at 25 from five matches – above his career average, but 15 of those 22 wickets were part of the three five-fers he took at Lords, Headingly and his beloved Oval; a testament to his ability as an impact bowler. The sides went into the final Test match of the five-Test with the series tied at 1-1. Pakistan had won the second Test by two wickets as Wasim Akram (45 not out ) and Waqar (20 not out) had rescued their side in a chase of 141 in the final innings.

In the fifth and deciding Test, the home side were skittled for 207 in their first innings and Pakistan responded with a disjointed 380, the top score being a 59 for Javed Miandad. England went into their second innings hoping to post a lead but in typically fighting fashion, Waqar demolished the top order, taking four of the top five wickets and reducing England to 92/5, a position from which they never recovered. The series was won, fittingly, at The Oval where he took so many wickets for Surrey.

We have seen Hafeez looking clueless against Dale Steyn, but those who saw Waqar would have recognised the similar impact he had on even better batsmen. For Steyn’s outswinger, read Waqar’s in-swinging yorker. When a new batsman came walked to the crease, fans, commentators, fellow players, even the batsmen knew what the next delivery was going to be yet none could keep it out. I often wondered why the batsmen didn’t just put his bat down on middle stump before the ball left the fast bowler’s hand, but the searing pace didn't allow for such liberties to be taken. His pace effectively ended David Gower's career in the final Test in 1992 as he bowled the left-hander and he wasn't the only one to have suffered the sting of their timbers being rattled.

Pakistan will probably have other bowlers who can better Waqar Younis' stats – although the fact he averaged 20 on the flat wickets of Pakistan, three below his overall career average cannot be ignored - but it's unlikely there will be another bowler with the impact and anticipation the Burewala Express generated in fans. At his peak, there was absolutely no one better and he's a worthy addition to the ICC Hall of Fame.

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