Every fan of Pakistan cricket had a moment some time soon after the turn of the century when he or she realised that Shoaib Akhtar had to be loved and reviled in equal measure. For me the epiphany hit during one of a million disposable limited-overs internationals, played in some forgotten cricketing backwater with the result lost to the ravages of the grueling international schedule. Pakistan had already qualified for the final of this particular tournament and were playing a completely meaningless game. We put up a total that was in keeping with our unpredictable batting and South Africa’s metronomic bowling. The game was quietly and dully drifting away from us until Shoaib decided he’d had enough. In a handful of overs of fast bowling so hostile it should have been banned by the United Nations as an immorally destructive weapon, Shoaib ran through most of the Proteas’ batting line up. Then he injured himself in his exertions for this pointless match and was out of action for a few months.

That’s the Shoaib Akhtar we get in his autobiography Controversially Yours. Like all sporting autobiographies, it is ghost-written by someone who never should have been allowed near a word processor in the first place, but no number of clichés, hyperbole and infinitives that are not so much split as brutally torn apart, can disguise the essence of Shoaib Akhtar. Here was a rebel who had a cause but it was one nobody could comprehend. When he won us matches, that rebelliousness is what made him a sex symbol loved more by testosterone-filled boys than anyone else. When he wasn’t playing, usually because of issues arising from that same rebellious nature, we held him in about as much esteem as we do rapists and child molesters.

As with all autobiographies looking to pad their word count, Controversially Yours traces the roots of Shoaib’s character to his childhood. Even as a school kid he was the consummate rebel, the boy who pulled little girls’ pigtails, jumped the school walls and spent more time on pranks than his homework. Shoaib the kid is instantly recognisable as the fast bowler who grabbed the public consciousness — with one important exception. For the first 16 or so years of his life, cricket seems to be entirely missing. There are plenty of stories about his buddies, their shenanigans and his home life but nothing whatsoever to indicate that we are reading about the life of someone who would become known for how fast he could hurl a cork ball.

A possible answer can be found in the way Shoaib describes his career. He glosses over match-winning performances in a stray sentence or two but can spend excruciating paragraphs on his need for speed. Shoaib is still aggrieved that his crossing of the 100-miles-per-hour barrier has not received the recognition it deserved. His passion for bowling seems to be dictated not to usual metrics like number of wickets taken divided by runs conceded but by how fast he bowled.

One of the reasons autobiographies of sports stars can be so excruciating is that they simply relate one event after the other, with no seeming connection or rationale existing to give them context. Perhaps that is because too much introspection would be a barrier to sporting success. There are stories of far too many sportsmen who developed the “yips” — unable to putt a golf ball, hit a decent serve — because self-doubt had started to infect their minds, a cancer of the sporting brain that destroyed their potential. The best sportsmen are those who can put negative thoughts aside. That is essentially what the overused phrase “in the zone” implies, reaching a state where all external thoughts become tangential.

That may be why Controversially Yours can essentially be boiled down to “I am a rebel who likes to bowl fast,” with hundreds of anecdotes stressing the thesis to the point where Shoaib seems to have been sustaining a parody of the life he thought a superstar like him should have been living. As a sportsman, Shoaib has no use for retrospection. But little hints are scattered about that Shoaib might be using the rebel avatar to disguise the slightest hint of insecurity. Here is a man who needs to be loved by everyone. His ability to bowl fast — not to bowl well, mind you — will earn him that adoration. Shoaib seems to mention the love he has received from seemingly every person who ever crossed his path, from a tonga driver in Lahore to Shahrukh Khan.

Shoaib also has a problem with just about everyone who had authority over him. He disdains coaches, can never get along with captains and sees all cricket board chairmen — with the exception of Tauqir Zia — as a combination of blundering dunces and sinister politicos. In individual cases, he may even be right but his criticisms added up tell us more about Shoaib than those he played under. Here is a man who, as he tells us repeatedly, will never bow down before the powerful. He will purposely act up just to make sure there is no confusion about what he thinks of those in charge. Shoaib may deal with games where he changed the outcome of a match in a cursory sentence but his tales of breaking curfews and partying in nightclubs is worthy of pages of exposition.

Contradictions abound in Controversially Yours, giving a hint of texture to a person who has never been diagnosed with profundity. Yes, he is his own man who doesn’t give a damn what Wasim Akram — to pick one of the many objects of his wrath — think of him. But he also craves approval, from a media that he feels didn’t give him his due for his speed, from Bollywood celebrities he likes to party with and, ultimately, from a cricketing establishment that he still considers immensely hard done by. Shoaib, like everyone who has been involved in and written about cricket, also decries the influence of everyday politics into the team. He writes indignantly about being hauled up before a Senate committee after Pakistan’s loss in the 1999 World Cup final and how he told off its members for daring to judge his commitment. Then, just a few chapters later he is praising Musharraf for intervening on his behalf and detailing efforts of how Rehman Malik convinced President Zardari to plead his case with the Pakistan Cricket Board.

This, ultimately, may be the biggest surprise in Shoaib Akhtar’s autobiography. We are so used to the simplicity of the man who graced our television screens for over a decade, we forget a man — with all the accompanying problems and contradictions that are a natural accompaniment to being human — lurked under the shiny surface. Shoaib isn’t interested in a confessional and so those problems are never dealt with. Yet, they can’t help but seep through.

The reviewer is a freelance journalist based in Islamabad

Controversially Yours(AUTOBIOGRAPHY)By Shoaib AkhtarHarper Collins, IndiaISBN 9789350291283320pp. Rs995