April 23, 2006	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24, 1427

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SYDNEY, April 22: Pakistan's former cricket captain Wasim Akram may be ignored back in his country but he is clearly in demand abroad and after Irfan Pathan, Australian speedster Brett Lee turned to Sultan of Swing to master art of reverse swing ahead of the Ashes.

“I think soon in the Ashes we will be seeing Brett Lee bowling reverse swing,” an AAP report quoted Wasim as saying.

Wasim, one of early practitioners of the art, said he gave tips to Lee and his other pace partners, which would help them improve but felt bowlers needed to work real hard to truly master the art.

“It was about action, about seam, a lot of talk about reverse swing,” Wasim said.

“These guys want to improve, so they want to ask the top cricketers (for advice) and that's good. I did tell them little details about reverse swing,” he added.

Australia have appointed Troy Cooley as their new bowling coach, who is widely credited for new found English ability to reverse swing the ball, to prepare themselves for the Ashes challenge and regain trophy they lost last summer.

Lee said word of advice from Wasim would help him and his pace-mates but conceded that the art was still to be mastered.

“We spoke about a number of things from conventional swing to reverse swing and different lines and lengths,'' Lee said.

“He gave us a few pointers and ways to try and get ball to swing a bit more. England did it very well last year when we played against them in the Ashes,'' he said adding his team would look to reverse trend in coming series.—Agencies