Wasim Akram made some controversial revelations about former Pakistan captain and teammate Saleem Malik in his biography ‘Sultan: A Memoir‘. Akram revealed that Malik would take advantage of his seniority and treat him like a servant while on tours. The 56-year-old also stated that Malik would demand for massages.
But since these revelations, Malik, who captained the national team from 1992-95, had a response to the former pacer and said that if he was ‘selfish’, he would never have given Akram ‘the chance to bowl’. “I wanted to ask him for his view on his comments and in what sense did he write that. We used to go on tour for Pakistan tours, there used to be laundry machines there. He never had to use their hands,” he said, while speaking to 24 News. Malik was guilty of match-fixing and was banned for life in 2000.
“It looks like he did it for publicity.”
“Till I don’t talk to him or I don’t check his book. I don’t want to comment on it. We are colleagues and spent good time together. So I don’t want to create any controversy.”
“If I was selfish, then how did he play his first match under me? So why would I let him bowl,” he asked.
“The way he is talking about clothes and massage, he is insulting himself. Till I don’t talk to him, I won’t know in what sense he wrote it”, he further added. During Malik’s captaincy, Pakistan won seven out of 12 Test matches and 21 of 34 ODIs.
Malik made his Test debut in 1982, against Sri Lanka. He registered an unbeaten knock of 100 in the second innings, becoming the second youngest player at that time to make a ton on Test debut. He was aged 18 years and 323 days. One of his popular performances was against India in 1987. Chasing 238 in 40 overs Pakistan were reduced to 161 for five, when he arrived at the crease. He smacked an unbeaten knock of 72 runs off 36 balls, helping his side win the game by two wickets and three balls to spare.