Good on you, Shoaib

Funnily enough, I thought Shoaib bowled quicker in Karachi during an earlier one-dayer against the Kiwis than he did in Lahore at the weekend. But that was just an impression I got when watching with the naked eye.

I wasn't behind the microphone as Shoaib attempted to crank it up the other day but the delivery recorded at 161 kilometres per hour didn't seem particularly quicker than any other.

But then I saw 161 come up on the board and I said to myself: "Hang on, what's that in miles?" I thought the next figure to flash up was 99.3mph so I didn't think any more about it until I heard that there were headlines around the world.

I'm proud of the record I set all those years ago. But it doesn't bother me that a new name now appears at the top of the list.

Like most people, I love watching fast bowlers in full flight and what I particularly admire about Shoaib is that he always tries his hardest to bowl quick, whatever the situation.

It doesn't matter whether it's a Test or a one-dayer and he won't be put off if the pitch is a slow dung heap. He just gives it everything and has a great attitude of wanting to provide excitement.

When he faces a 90mph bowler, a batsman has roughly half a second to sight the ball, decide on a shot, move his feet and execute the stroke . . . before it's all too late.

All I ever wanted to do when I was a youngster making my way in the game was to bowl quick and Shoaib seems to have exactly the same idea. Good on him.

I remember it was a big thrill for me when I was declared the fastest during a competition in Perth in 1978.

Almost all the top fast bowlers of the day were there - Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Dennis Lillee, Wayne Daniel, Mike Proctor and Imran Khan - for a speed-gun test.

I more or less just rocked up off the streets. I knew I wasn't as quick as I used to be, following major shoulder surgery, but the organisers told me I had to take part. "You're supposed to be the fastest," they said.

The funny thing was that I not only won, clocking around 93mph, but also came away with a prize for being the most accurate. It was the second part of that double which really shocked a few people because I wasn't always known for the reliability of my radar.

There were so many quick bowlers about in the Seventies that there were a lot of arguments about who was the fastest.

Three years before the Perth challenge, I was clocked at 99.70mph during a match against the West Indies and that is the figure which went into the Guinness Book of Records.

I don't know whether I ever bowled faster than that, when the speed guns were not about, and it doesn't really matter. But hopefully the bar will keep rising now, so to speak, with Shoaib trying to go quicker still and others attempting to challenge him.

Shoaib must be particularly chuffed because he's had to cope with more than his fair share of worries, what with repeated injuries and questions being raised about the legitimacy of his bowling action.

As far as his action is concerned, I've never had a problem with it and I hope he can now concentrate on his cricket. And trying to bowl faster still, of course.