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Fourteen years ago, Wasim Akram and Shaniera Akram became one of Pakistan’s most scrutinised celebrity couples when they tied the knot. 

He is, of course, the undisputed ‘Sultan of Swing’. A fast-bowling wizard. A national treasure who continues to draw eyes every time he walks into a room. She, on the other hand, is the tall, blonde Australian whirlwind with strong opinions, a sharp wit and a well-defined personality of her own. Together, they represented the collision of two completely disparate worlds and the way in which they have navigated their lives together has always been fascinating for the country at large.

An unlikely love story

“When we got married, there were a lot of discussions that started out in the open, in the media. Like the fact that he was older than me, that we were from different cultures and I had earlier belonged to a different religion, or that he had been married before and that I was going to be the mother of his two boys,” says Shaniera. “Not once did I consider any of this. It was just Allah’s will or destiny that made me feel that this was going to be an easy choice for me and I decided that I would go with it.

“My mother is a big believer in love finding its own path and she told me that it was better that I gave it a try rather than always have regrets. I mean I wasn’t going to miss out on the love of my life just because I was scared!” she laughs. “That’s one thing I am not — scared.”

No, she didn’t know who he was

It’s a known fact that back when Wasim and Shaniera first met at a mutual friend’s gathering in Australia, she didn’t know who he was. Once she did realise what a big deal he was, did she get starstruck by him?

She grins. “He did use that pickup line with me, that you know, I am a big deal. I told him that wasn’t going to work with me!” she says.

“But yes, once I came to Pakistan, there he was, on all these billboards. I got so much attention from the people around me and I knew that it was because I was married to him. It made me determined to give the country someone that they could respect and love,” she explains. “At the same time, I wanted to be who I was and if people still gravitated towards me, that was great. If they didn’t, that was fine too. Over the years, I have gotten a lot of love and I am very thankful for it.” 

Shaniera pauses. “But I don’t get starstruck easily. What I did love was who he was, as a person. I mean, it’s been 14 years and I have devoted my life to our children and our home and I am still here, aren’t I?”

14 years and counting

It is, in fact, on the very day that they celebrate 14 years of marriage that I meet Wasim and Shaniera. They are in their Karachi home, a gorgeous, open-spaced property near the sea. We sit in their lounge, which is bordered by wide windows overlooking a pool twinkling under the summer sun. Do you always give interviews on your wedding anniversary, I tease.

“We’ve celebrated in different ways,” smiles Wasim. “We have had 14 wonderful years together and I feel that things have only gotten better with time.”

Shaniera adds, “Every marriage takes its time and you have your off years and your on years but I feel that if, after about 10 years, you have become best friends and enjoying your lives, you are likely to be together forever.”

Love across continents

Theirs is not a conventional marriage, with plenty of traveling involved and Shaniera shuttling back and forth between Australia and Pakistan. “Yes, the job is such; commentaries and gigs, here and there,” agrees Wasim. “It can be tough at times. Our daughter Aiyla is now 11 and I just spent a month and a half with her and it was great. Still, we as a couple know that this is part of our lives. Eventually, I’ll calm down but so far, it has been pretty busy.”

Shaniera says, “During the first five years of our marriage, I would join him wherever he went. But we both knew that there would come a time when Aiyla would be going to school and I wouldn’t be able to take her with me.”

Wasim says, “Till 2016, I would be spending six to seven months in a year in India, working for ESPN Star Sports and also, when I coached the Kolkata Knight Riders.”

She continues, “I learnt very early in my marriage that he would be traveling a lot. Initially, I would cry a lot and really miss him. I was young and going through all these emotions and in retrospect, I am glad that I did. I was alone at home, raising the boys. I made friends with other moms whose kids were going to school with the boys and understood which shops to go to. Not too many people around me knew English so I learnt how to speak bits of domestic Urdu.”

I recall how Wasim often slips into Punjabi banter and interject here: did you learn a bit of Punjabi too?

“No,” laughs Shaniera, while Wasim quips, “Only the swear words!”

The mom who stepped up

Did Shaniera feel apprehensive about becoming a mom to Wasim’s two sons from his earlier marriage, Akbar and Taimur? Shaniera smiles, “When I met them, I think I fell in love with them more! I was smitten by them. I have such fun memories from when they were little. I don’t think it could have all worked out so well had it not been for the boys. I needed them and they needed me and Wasim could go off and do what he had to do.

“There was this stage when I realised that I needed to be their mom and not just their friend. I remember telling them that there will be times when you will hate me and will be screaming at me but that will just mean that I am doing my job right. I told them that I will never leave you, never let you down but I will, at times, be hard on you and that will be just me being your mom. It’s the greatest gift that I can give you. I think, looking back in time, they realise this.”

Shaniera continues, getting teary-eyed. “It just gets so hard as boys get older. You want to keep telling them what to do but you understand that you can’t and that they are now men who have to go off on their own.”

I point out that they still have Aiyla to raise and can go through the entire process all over again.

“Oh yes, she’s there,” Shaniera smiles. “But girls are different. They are always with you and they love you and they’re your best friends. Boys eventually go off on their own. Boy moms will understand this. I think I get the mother-in-law thing now!” she laughs.

I ask Wasim whether his boys ever wanted to play cricket. “No, I was mostly traveling while they were growing up and cricket was the last thing on their minds,” he says. “I never pushed them towards playing cricket. They could do whatever they wanted to do. Also, I have observed that when celebrities’ children decide to follow in their parents’ footsteps, they face a lot of pressure and get a lot of flak!”

He adds, “Even though cricket is still the number one sport in Pakistan, I doubt that the younger generation watches it as avidly.”

When cricket was king

This takes the conversation towards the sad state of Pakistani cricket. Does he feel that the younger generation isn’t following cricket because the Pakistani cricket team has not been performing well? 

“Yes,” he agrees. “When the team doesn’t perform well, the followers disappear.”

“I am a bit of a believer,” says Shaniera. “I think that people still want to support the team but they just don’t want to get their hopes up. If the Pakistani team started doing well again, people will be passionate about the game instantly. I mean, Pakistanis cannot not like cricket! It’s just that they have learnt to do other things in the meantime.”

“As a commentator, it can get tough when Pakistan is losing a cricket match,” says Wasim. “Your voice still needs to sound authoritative and you still have to speak passionately but deep down, you’re also feeling bad. All you can do is pretend.”

Leaving the past behind

Back in Wasim’s heyday, of course, cricket players would be the nation’s most-loved heroes. The state of cricket today is in such sharp contrast, isn’t it? “Yes, back in the 80s and 90s, entire families would be waiting in the hotel lobby waiting for the team to return after playing a match. They would queue up to get our autographs. We were their heroes, Captain Imran Khan and his entire team.”

Does remembering the glories of the past ever make him gloomy? “No, not for the last eight years. I am very content with where I am in life. I played 21 years ago and that’s done, I can’t live in the past. You can’t change the past, you can only plan the future and you have to live in the present.”

Wasim’s autobiography, Sultan: A Memoir, co-written with cricket journalist Gideon Haigh, offers riveting stories from his cricketing heyday, which was also the golden era of Pakistani cricket. It also candidly — and bravely — delves into dark periods of his life, such as the alleged match-fixing controversy that he was involved in, the death of his first wife and his battle with cocaine addiction. When the book was in the works, did people around him tell him that it could be dangerous to dabble with topics that could easily raise hue and cry?

“Yes, they probably did. I was maybe 56 or 55 when the book came out and what was written in it was just what it was, the truth. A lot of the admissions in the book are brave, especially in the culture that we live in,” he says. “A lot of my colleagues got worried when they found out that I was writing a book. They feared that I would be discussing their personal lives. I told them that yes, I would be talking about cricket-related incidents but never about their personal lives. That’s not my nature.”

Wasim continues, “Writing the book was tough; to revisit not just the triumphs but also the trials and the tragedies of the past and then to meet Gideon, either in person or via Zoom, and sit with him for five, six hours.”

Shaniera refers to his account on overcoming addiction: “I think he might have gotten more upset that that was one of the main things that people focused on. That book is a beacon of truth and that is why he wrote it, not for fame or money. If tomorrow, someone comes to us with all these questions, all they have to do is read the book!”

Did Shaniera also ask some of these questions related to his past — the debate on match-fixing, for instance — before she married him? “I don’t think when I was told, it was even a concern. I met him and fell in love with him. Whatever happened in the past has made him who he is now and who I fell in love with.” She addresses Wasim, laughing, “I mean anything you do after that matters!”

Wasim adds, “About this match-fixing conversation: it is mostly people in Pakistan who still talk about it and many of them weren’t even born when it happened. They have just heard about it from their parents. I am done telling people my side of the story and I have come to the point where I have moved on in life and don’t care what people say. I don’t understand how people can come on social media and write paragraphs of negative comments. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I did that.”

‘Are you dead?’

Speaking of social media, an AI-generated video recently went viral announcing that Wasim had ‘passed away’. In response, Shaniera had posted a video of him working out in the gym, hale and hearty. Did the video disturb them? “Not at all,” says Wasim. “People were messaging me and asking me, ‘Are you dead?’ and I was replying, ‘Haan yar marr gaya (yeah bro, I died)’. It must have taken a lot of talent to create that video but it was just wasted on something that was so negative.”

Shaniera adds, “I was sitting next to him and watching that video and finding it funny. Things like these happen and you can’t take them seriously. What scares me, though, is that the world is in a very vulnerable place and we should all be aware and educated about what is happening around us and what to trust.”

Using her ‘voice’

Education is something that Shaniera has always been very vocal about, as well as other issues, such as littering, living healthy and driving without a seatbelt. 

“These are all simple things that she has been vocal about. I see a lot of celebrities around me now being responsible and wearing seatbelts but to those who don’t: please do so, because you are a role model with millions of followers and you need to lead by example,” says Wasim.

“I am sorry if I caused any ripples,” says Shaniera, “but I consider both Karachi and Melbourne my homes. If I see something which could cost someone their lives or hurt them, I cannot not talk about it.  So yes, I have spoken about things that I felt were important and also tried to make people more aware about staying fit and developing healthy eating habits.”

“I have been diabetic for 31 years and I feel that there is not enough awareness about the condition in Pakistan. It’s actually a nationwide pandemic —Pakistan currently has the highest number of diabetics in the world, according to the World Health Organisation — but no one talks about it because it doesn’t cause any pain. That is why it’s called the silent killer,” explains Wasim.

“It’s a very complicated disease, unfortunately,” he says, “and while it is easier said than done, if you watch what you eat and exercise, you will be able to manage.”

Shaniera observes, “Actually, over these past 14 years, a lot has changed. There are gyms everywhere so people have realised the importance of staying fit. Also, most celebrities now work with NGOs and speak on causes that are close to their hearts, like animal rights, women’s welfare or child sexual abuse. Fourteen years ago, you couldn’t even say the words, ‘child sexual abuse’ — it was considered a taboo!”

She continues, “I do want to thank my husband for never suppressing me and letting me have my own voice. At the same time, I haven’t lately been commenting a lot on issues. After the pandemic, I went to Australia because I hadn’t met my parents all through the lockdown. I put Aiyla in school there because schools in Pakistan were still closed and she was already late by a year. Later, I was planning to return to Pakistan but there were floods and Wasim told me to just stay in Australia for a little longer.

“Over time, we felt that the arrangement worked for us better. He would be so much more relaxed when he would be with us in Australia and we would be together 24/7, spending quality time. So right now, I don’t want to be that Australian person living in Australia, commenting on what is happening in Pakistan. I would rather talk about what is happening in Australia. I have also been in complete Mom mode while in Australia; cleaning the pool, cooking, getting the groceries, driving, taking care of the kids. It’s a lot of work and it’s kept me really busy!”

Faith, fitness and turning 60

Wasim recently went for Hajj and turned 60 while on the pilgrimage. The physical requirements of Hajj must have been manageable for Wasim because he is so fit, I observe. “Yes, I used to get motivated by people around me who were maybe 70 or 80 and limping,” he says. “I thought that if they could do this, it should be a piece of cake for me.”

He adds, “Physically, I feel great. I still do all that I used to do 20 years ago. But yes, when I am filling out a form online and have to add my birthdate, I have to scroll down several times until the ticker stops at 1966!” Wasim laughs.

Shaniera says, “I think a lot of people in Pakistan think 60 is old but actually, if you are mindful of your health, 60 is the new 40!”

At some point during our conversation, Shaniera shares a hilarious anecdote: “We were recently cleaning my grandmother’s home who has passed away and we came across a video. I was perhaps nine years old in and my cousins and I had made a train and we were running around the sitting room while my father was watching cricket. My cousin squinted at the video and asked me, ‘Is that Wasim?’ And it was him, playing cricket!” She laughs.

For a couple like Wasim and Shaniera, it is evident that age is merely a number. Fourteen years since they became a topic of endless public speculation, the questions directed towards them have changed, the children have grown up and their lives have taken them across continents. And somewhere along the way, this couple has become what Shaniera says is essential to any happy marriage: being best friends.