Today's Batsmen Are Fortunate Not To Face The Likes Of Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis And Me - Shoaib Akhtar

Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar opined that the current generation batsmen are lucky that they don’t have to face bowlers like Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, and himself.

In a recent interview with Sportskeeda, the ‘Rawalpindi Express’ was asked about the evolvement of the game in the past decade. He was prompt to say that the batters in today’s day don’t respect the bowlers as conditions are heavily skewed to their favour. But, Shoaib Akhtar continued, had they faced the aforementioned legendary bowlers of the previous era, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against them.

He stated that the sport hasn’t evolved, but in essence, only their shots have developed while the quality of cricket has gone down.

“The game of cricket has not evolved. The shots have evolved, but the quality of the game has deteriorated in the last 10 years. Today’s batsmen are fortunate not to face the likes of Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and me,” Shoaib Akhtar told Sportskeeda.

The viewership of the game has come down because the characters of the game have gone: Shoaib Akhtar

Shoaib Akhtar further observed that the viewership has also suffered a drip because the major “characters of the game have gone” away from the game. He pointed out that there have often been talks of Test cricket suffering due to a lack of interest from the younger audience, and that only a few big games in ICC events gain traction from the viewers.

“The deterioration has happened. The viewership of the game has not increased but it has come down because the characters of the game have gone. People are saying there’s more viewership, but how is there more viewership? There’s no viewership for Test matches. 600 million might have watched the Champions Trophy match, but that was a one-off,” said the 45-year-old former fast bowler.