Shoaib Akhtar recalled that a young MS Dhoni had frustrated him so much that he had bowled a beamer at the batsman — the first time he had done such a thing — in the second Test of the 2006 series between India and Pakistan in Faisalabad.
“I think I had bowled a 8-9 over spell in Faisalabad. It was a quick spell and Dhoni scored a hundred. I purposely bowled a beamer to Dhoni and then apologised to him,” Akhtar told to Aakash Chopra on his YouTube channel on Saturday.
“It was the first time in my life I had bowled a beamer purposely. I shouldn’t have done it. I regretted it a lot. He was playing so well and the wickets were so slow. However fast I was bowling, he kept on hitting. I think I got frustrated,” he said.
Akhtar added that beamers should not be part of the game.
Dhoni, then 25 years of age, had scored his maiden Test century – an incredible knock of 148 — in the first innings of the Faisalabad Test.