In the 2015 World Cup quarter-final between Pakistan and Australia in Adelaide, Wahab Riaz bowled one of the most entertaining spells of fast bowling in World Cup history. His target: the normally aggressive Shane Watson, who was reduced to a nervous, ducking, swaying wreck by an onslaught of short-pitched bowling that carried the menace of a horror movie and the entertainment value of a blockbuster.
Wahab bowled bouncer after bouncer at Watson, interspersed with death stares that could curdle milk at 50 paces. Each time a ball whistled past Watson's head — close enough to ruffle his hair — Wahab would follow through right up to the batsman and give him a look that said, "There's more where that came from, and none of it is pleasant." Watson, who usually attacked fast bowling with the casual confidence of a man ordering breakfast, was playing and missing, ducking desperately, and at one point nearly fell over trying to avoid a short ball.
The spell was pure theatre — Wahab's aggression, Watson's survival instinct, and the roaring Adelaide crowd combined to create a passage of play that had viewers on the edge of their seats and gripping their armrests with white-knuckled intensity. Wahab's follow-through — walking right up to Watson's face after each delivery, staring at him from approximately six inches away — was the kind of intimidation that would have been illegal in most professional contexts.
Despite the ferocity, Wahab couldn't get Watson out during the spell, and Australia went on to win the match. But nobody remembers the result — they remember the contest, the stares, and Watson's expression of a man who'd rather be literally anywhere else on the planet, including the surface of the sun.