By the time he reaches the crease he is at full tilt and when he flicks his bowling hand to eye level and points his right shoulder down the pitch he has you in his sights. For a split second you lose the ball through the speed of his left arm as it retracts, like the head of a snake, before reappearing and releasing to strike. The next time you see the ball is often a time too late. It is the simplest and most lethal of bowling methods and it belongs to Wasim Akram, the Pakistan captain. He and the boys are back in town.
The boys are warriors, startling cricketers who can sink or swim, proud and confrontational men who reflect the volatility of their people and the political fragility of their place.
The captain is all of this and more, a revolutionary cricketer with a stunning natural armoury. The lightning-fast, accurate in-swinger, the versatile and disconcerting out-swinger, the cruel skidding bouncer, the unsettling slower ball and the deadly yorker. Facing up to Wasim is a confusing, alarming and sometimes frightening game of 90mph cat and mouse. To defeat him you must be prepared, even for humiliation, and you must outlast him for only then, if his bait is not taken, will he strain with variations and patience. This is the way with genius, if cricket has such a thing, when it is frustrated. Frustrate the genius general and you will annul his troops.
This is Wasim's second go at the captaincy of his country. The first finished in revolt when his board of control crumbled in the face of dressing-room mutiny. Five players have captained Pakistan since - two, Moin Khan and Saeed Anwar, for just one match - which illustrates the unrest. A year ago, when it was clear that Wasim should take the job again, he was not certain he wished for it. It is a job fraught with the knives of cynics and of thieves, and as he is a known disciple of Imran Khan, he knew plenty of the knives were for him.
STILL, he took it when asked last autumn - ``under certain conditions,'' he says. ``By then I felt strong enough to try do something more for my country.'' He changed his style, foregoing the lofty ways of Imran and returning to the bosom of his boys. Their first time together again was in Australia last winter and though Pakistan were defeated, they recovered their esteem with victory in Sydney and with smart communication which did much to cool the boiling blood surrounding the bribery business haunting the team.
``Communication is very important,'' says Wasim. ``We have been misunderstood through our silence, which builds into bitterness in the dressing room as the players feel they are unjustly accused. We have gone out of our way to talk with people and show a smiling public face. I hope any county we have played this tour will tell you that. By nature we are an aggressive people, but we are learning to save our aggression for the field.''
He played with a tennis ball as a kid and bowled spin but got ``smashed all over the place'' so switched to bowling as fast as he could.
Not that all the sailing has been plain since the tour of Australia. Far from it. Pakistan lost the quarter-final of the World Cup in Bangalore - to India. Wasim was unable to play because of injury and arrived home in Lahore to appalling accusations of dishonesty over his in- capacity, to the sight of his own burning effigies, to mob calls for his hanging head and to an investigation by the Senate. ``I was very down. My country had given me my name and I have had difficult times before that I could live with, knowing the passion for cricket in Pakistan. This time was different, awful. I was near quitting because no game can be worth what my family went through.'' His family, who have no history in sport, were shocked. They stood back and sheltered Wasim while the war raged. ``They saw me through it, my family and my wife.''
He says his wife, Huma, a psychologist, has evened his temperament - ``I was hot-headed before'' - and that Javed Miandad, Mudassar Nazar and Imran have been the brightest lights of his cricket education.
He played with a tennis ball as a kid and bowled spin but got ``smashed all over the place'' so switched to bowling as fast as he could. He was invited to bowl with a hard ball during a summer camp at the Ludhana Gymkhana Club and was picked by Khan Mohammed, a former Test player, as something special. Khan whispered well for a year, and without having played in a single first-class game, he was named, at 17, in a President's XI against New Zealand. He bowled New Zealand out and took nine wickets in the match. Within a few weeks he was selected for Pakistan.
Javed taught him the worth of hard graft and Imran encouraged him to get the most from his gifts. Witness the World Cup final in 1992 and Wasim's chronic no-balling problem which Imran countered by telling him to forget about it, to bowl as fast as he could, to swing the ball and to think only of taking wickets. ``I have always enjoyed experimenting with swing. I take net practice very seriously and am always trying new things. It's about the position of the wrist, you know, nothing to do with body action or position at all.''
In 67 Test matches Wasim has taken 289 wickets cheaply at 22 each. His dynamic batting talent has largely been wasted. ``I'm better attacking the ball but I lose confidence quickly and tend to clam up at the crease. Bowling takes a lot out of me and as I prefer to bowl long spells, sometimes 25 overs a day, the intense concentration in doing so leaves my batting open to silly mistakes. Too often I try to defend and occupy the crease and it doesn't really work.''
He loves Lahore, where he lives, but barely more than Lancashire, where he been adopted. In Lancashire the feeling is mutual. ``I would live in either place happily. I shall play for Lancashire for two more years and then I'll be 32 and probably too tired,'' he says. Last year he captained his county when Mike Watkinson was at Test matches and ``led by example,'' says Watkinson, ``bowling his heart out and encouraging the youngsters. He took great pride in it.''
Which is what Wasim does now with Pakistan. He has knitted a team, he says, and told them not to fear failure. Only to give all that they have and to hold their heads high. He is as strong and as fit as he could ever be and his brand of Muslim mystique should make for sizzling sport against his mate Michael Atherton's no-nonsense, Church of England straightforwardness. This summer of Test match cricket begins in earnest today.