A doosra by a right-armed blonde castled modern cricket's most celebrated leftie on Tuesday. "What would you like to gift Mrs Akram on Mother's Day next week?"
Two Class VII girls asked Wasim Akram, prompted by the all-rounder's bored-by-cricket-questions wife, Shaneira Thompson. "Good one babes," smiled the bowler from the stage looking at his Australian wife.
To the girls, he said: "Well done, girls. You got me there. Whatever she wants I suppose is the right answer right now."
KKR's most dashing Knight was at a school in north Calcutta on Tuesday, taking questions on everything from Javed Miandad to Mamata Banerjee to Shah Rukh Khan and to Calcutta.
"Calcutta is like a second home to me," said the bowling coach of Kolkata Knight Riders. "...You come back after a game - either you win or lose people keep standing on the roads clapping at 12 at night. It's a very sports-loving city. I always loved Calcutta, always loved the people. What I always love about Kolkata, Bangal (Bengal), is the people - they are hardworking, they are happy, they are hot-headed sometimes on the road but full of passion. Very, very passionate people."
The girls and boys of Delhi Public School North Kolkata waited patiently for the left arm fast bowler to arrive. He was greeted with a standing ovation as the students burst into cheer as he walked up to the stage. Some had heard about him from their parents, some followed him through IPL, and some had read about him to ask the right questions.
But before the question-answer session began, Akram asked the organisers to arrange for the students to move right up to the front as he felt they could not see him. "We are here for the kids so I want them to see us, hear us and listen to us," he said to a round of applause from 130 students of Class VII and VIII.
Spending time at the school near the Dunlop crossing for more than an hour, the bowler said he had picked up Bengali from his visits to Calcutta. He was "listening to a song in Bangali - Bappi Lahiri ne gaya hai Gunday film ka - Entry. Bangali mein sun raha hoon (It's a song sung by Bappi Lahiri and I am listening to the song in Bengali)".
When the moderator said Akram was almost a citizen of Calcutta and since the 2016 elections were eight or nine months away he should vote here, the fast bowler smiled: "I think I will leave the elections to Didi; she is doing quite well."
But talking to students at DPS North Kolkata, he spoke about how his mentor Imran Khan had taught him the virtue of hard work. "Success is fun in the long run and success comes with a simple solution - that is hard work... For me, Indian kids, Pakistani kids, Bangladeshi kids, Sri Lankan kids - all are kids to me. I have two boys and a four-month-old girl. So, whoever comes up to me, it's my duty, it's my job to teach them whatever I can in a simple manner. That's what I have learnt in coaching. Be simple."
For him "cricket has to be played on the ground... laptop mein coaching thori na hoti hai (coaching does not happen on the laptop)".
He also loves his experience of working with Shah Rukh Khan. "He is a very easy-going person.... Loves KKR, loves Calcutta, loves the people here... He has a very good sense of humour... works hard, very much, that's why he is where he is. "As Pakistanis, we idolise Shah Rukh... as an actor and the way he acts.... He is a mega star in Pakistan. He is a massive star here; he is a bigger star in Pakistan. They only know one name in Pakistan - it's Shah Rukh Khan."
Cricket might have bored his wife who teamed up with Kamakshi Jaiswal and Sagarika Das of Delhi Public School New Town to ask what she had wanted on Mother's Day. "She told us that people were talking only about cricket and it was getting a bit boring. If we ask this question the crowd will break into laughter. We then asked her if we could get a picture with him," said Kamakshi Jaiswal.
For Akram it's "lamb chops" at Lords, but it's "mustard fish" in Calcutta. "If you are in Bangal, you gonna have fish and the way you guys make it I can just eat it every day of my life."
