Wednesday 18 December 2013

Waqar Younis and Adam Gilchrist: ICC Hall of Fame 2013

   Waqar Younis Maitla is a former Pakistani right-arm fast bowler in cricket and widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. As of 2012, he holds the record for the youngest Pakistani Test captain and the third youngest Test captain in history (22 years 15 days).  He played 87 Tests and 262 One Day International (ODI) matches for Pakistan during his international cricket career from 1989 to 2003.
Waqar was named among the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1992 for his sporting achievements. He is also the only bowler to have taken 5 wickets in an innings in 3 consecutive One Day International matches. In terms of deliveries bowled, he has taken the fastest 50, 300, 350 and 400 wickets in One Day International matches and the fastest 150, 200, 250, 300 and 350 wickets in Test matches.

Although primarily a fast bowler, Waqar scored 1010 Test match runs during his career. As of September 2005, he was the only non-batsman to achieve a thousand runs without scoring a fifty. Waqar holds the record for the best strike rate for any bowler with over 350 Test wickets.

International Cricket Council on 9 December 2013 announced that they had inducted Waqar in the prestigious ICC Hall of Fame. Waqar become the 70th male members of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. He will joins Camp patriot Hanif Mohammad as well as his former teammates Imran Khan, Javed Miandad and Wasim Akram.

  Adam Craig Gilchrist, nicknamed "Gilly" or "Churchy", is a former Australian cricketer who has captained Kings XI Punjab and Middlesex. He is an attacking left-handed batsman and record-breaking wicket-keeper, who redefined the role for the Australian national team through his aggressive batting. He is considered to be one of the greatest wicket-keeper–batsmen in the history of the game. He holds the world record for the most dismissals by a wicket keeper in One Day International (ODI) cricket and the most by an Australian in Test cricket. His strike rate is amongst the highest in the history of both ODI and Test cricket; his century against England at Perth in December 2006 is the second-fastest century in all Test cricket. He is the only player to have hit 100 sixes in Test cricket. His 17 Test and 16 ODI centuries are the most by a wicket-keeper. He holds the unique record of scoring at least 50 runs in successive World Cup finals (in 1999, 2003 and 2007) and is one of only three players to have won three titles.

Gilchrist was one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year for 2002, and Australia's One-day International Player of the Year in 2003 and 2004. He was awarded the Allan Border Medal in 2003,[213] and was the only Australian cricketer who was a current player at the time to have been named in "Richie Benaud's Greatest XI" in 2004. He was selected in the ICC World XI for the charity series against the ACC Asian XI, 2004–05, was voted as "World's Scariest Batsman" in a poll of international bowlers, and was named as wicket-keeper and opening batsman in Australia's "greatest ever ODI team." In a poll of over ten thousand people hosted in 2007 by Cricinfo, he was voted the ninth greatest all-rounder of the last one hundred years. A panel of prominent cricket writers selected him in Australia's all-time best XI for Cricinfo. Gilchrist has not only left his mark on Australian cricket but the whole cricketing world.

In 2010, Gilchrist was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to cricket and the community. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2012. On 9-December-2013, ICC announced that they had inducted Gilchrist in the prestigious ICC Hall of Fame.

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