Pakistan pace great Wasim Akram, in his biography ‘Sultan: A Memoir’, criticised the attitude former Pakistan captain Saleem Malik during their playing days. Akram, who made his international debut in 1984, said that senior teammate Malik made him give massage and clean his clothes and boots. “He would take advantage of my junior status. He was negative, selfish and treated me like a servant. He demanded I massage him, he ordered me to clean his clothes and boots,” read an excerpt from the biography. “I was angry when some of the younger team members in Ramiz, Tahir, Mohsin, Shoaib Mohammad invited me to nightclubs.”
Now Malik has responded to the charges. “I was trying to call him but he did not answer. I will ask him what was the reason for writing what he did,”the former batter was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
On Akram’s accusation that Malik asked him to clean his clothes, he explained that Akram just had to use the washing machine. “It’s not as if he was washing it by hand,” Malik said.
“If I was narrow minded, I would not have given him the chance to bowl. I will ask him why he wrote such remarks about me.”
Earlier, Akram also opened up on his cocaine addiction in his autobiography. In a recent interview with the Grade Cricketers’ Podcast, Akram has revealed that he was kept in a rehab in Pakistan for two-and-a-half months against his will.
“In England, somebody at a party said ‘you wanna try it?’ I was retired, I said ‘yeah’. Then one line became a gram. I came back to Pakistan. Nobody knew what it was but it was available. I realised, I couldn’t function without it, which means I couldn’t socialise without it. It got worse and worse. My kids were young. I was hurting my late wife a lot. We would have arguments. She said I need help.”
“She said there’s a rehab, you can go there. I said alright I will go there for a month but they kept me there for two and a half months against my will. Apparently, that is illegal in the world but not in Pakistan. That didn’t help me. When I came out, a rebellion came into me. It’s my money, I stayed in that horrible place against my will,” he stated further.
