Cricket

The town that bowls fast

Burewala is a canal-irrigated agricultural city of modest size. It has also produced the man known worldwide as the Burewala Express, and the tallest cricketer in the history of the game. Here is the record, properly documented in English.

Illustration: a worn red cricket ball on a dry rural pitch, stumps blurred in the background - decorative image — AI-generated illustration

373

Test wickets taken by Waqar Younis

87 Test matches, 1989–2003

416

ODI wickets taken by Waqar Younis

262 ODI matches

7 ft 1 in

Height of Mohammad Irfan — tallest in international cricket

2.16 metres

22y 15d

Waqar's age when he became Pakistan's youngest Test captain

4th youngest in Test history

Career statistics compiled from player profiles on Wikipedia, retrieved October 2026. Records are stated as of 2021–2023 published profile data.

Player profiles

Two Burewala-area fast bowlers reached the very top of world cricket, in two completely different ways.

Waqar Younis Maitla

Right-arm fast bowler · Pakistan · Captain & later head coach · Born 16 November 1971, Burewala

Known as the Burewala Express. Born in Burewala, Vehari district, to a Punjabi Jat family, Waqar is widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers the game has produced. His trademark was the ability to reverse-swing a cricket ball at high pace — a skill he and bowling partner Wasim Akram turned into one of the most feared new-ball attacks in world cricket.

Test matches

373

Test wickets

262

ODI matches

416

ODI wickets

1989–2003

International career

1991
Becomes the youngest man to captain Pakistan in Test cricket, at 22 years and 15 days — still the fourth youngest Test captain in history.
1999
Part of the Pakistan squad that finished as runners-up at the ICC Cricket World Cup in England.
1971–2003
Finishes with 373 Test wickets — the second-best strike rate of any bowler with more than 350 Test wickets, behind only Dale Steyn. He is the youngest bowler ever to take 400 ODI wickets.
2006–2011
Serves as Pakistan bowling coach, then national head coach from March 2010 until resigning in August 2011.
2019
Appointed by the PCB as Pakistan's bowling coach on a three-year contract on 4 September.

Mohammad Irfan

Left-arm fast bowler · Pakistan (Test, ODI, T20I) · Born 6 June 1982, Gaggo Mandi, Vehari district

The tallest player ever to play first-class and international cricket, at 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m). Born in the village of Gaggo Mandi — an area that falls within Burewala Tehsil — Irfan worked in a plastic-pipe factory to support his family before cricket found him.

2.16 m

Height (7 ft 1 in)

2009

First-class debut (Quaid-e-Azam Trophy)

Test / ODI / T20

Represented Pakistan in all three formats

Before cricket
Works in a plastic-pipe factory. Comes from a notably tall family — four brothers all over 6 ft, a father of 6 ft 9 in and a mother of 6 ft 6 in.
2009
After impressing coaches at the National Cricket Academy, is persuaded by opener Azhar Ali to trial for Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). He is selected and makes his first-class debut in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.
Second first-class match
Takes 7 for 113 in the second innings and 9 wickets in the match — the performance that made his name.
International
Goes on to represent Pakistan in Test, ODI and T20 cricket, and remains the tallest man to have played the international game.

Major Tufail Mohammad

Punjab Regiment · Nishan-e-Haider recipient · 22 June 1914 – 7 August 1958

Listed among Vehari District's notable figures, Tufail Mohammad was the third recipient of the Nishan-e-Haider — Pakistan's highest military award, meaning "Emblem of the Lion". He was decorated for valour during the 1958 East Pakistan–India border clashes.

Nishan-e-Haider

Pakistan's highest military honour

3rd

Recipient of the award

1958

Year of the action for which he was decorated

Gulraiz Sadaf

First-class cricketer · Multan

Another cricketer born in Burewala, Gulraiz Sadaf plays for the Multan team. Alongside Waqar Younis and Mohammad Irfan, his name is listed among the city's notable personalities in the district record.

Why this town?

Burewala's production of world-class fast bowlers is a genuine outlier for a city of its size and profile.

Cricket in central Punjab is played seriously from a young age, on open ground with little formal infrastructure. Burewala sits in a dense belt of Punjab cricket culture, close enough to Multan's first-class setup that its best players can be spotted and pulled upward.

Irfan's route is instructive: spotted at the National Cricket Academy, trialled at Khan Research Laboratories, and debuted in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy — the classic pathway from rural Punjab to the national team.

Also from Burewala

The ancestral village of Indian film actor Rajesh Khanna lies here — another entry in a surprisingly deep list of notable names attached to a single agricultural town.

Name	Field	Known for
Waqar Younis	Cricket	373 Test / 416 ODI wickets
Mohammad Irfan	Cricket	Tallest player ever, 2.16 m
Gulraiz Sadaf	Cricket	Multan first-class side
Major Tufail Mohammad	Military	Nishan-e-Haider, 3rd recipient
Rajesh Khanna	Film	Ancestral village
Haji Sher Dewan	Religion	7th-century Sufi shrine nearby

The local game today

Burewala Tehsil includes the towns of Gaggo Mandi, Shaikh Fazal, Sahuka, Jamlera and Chak No. 327/E.B, all added when the tehsil was created in July 1976. Tape-ball and hard-ball cricket is played across these settlements year-round, with the district's talent feeding into Multan's regional sides.

The city's most internationally recognised cricket export remains the nickname itself. "Burewala Express" travels further than the town's name does — which is precisely why documenting the connection properly in English is worth doing.

Contributing

If you have verified results, records or player details from Burewala or Vehari district cricket — school, club or tape-ball level — this page is built to be extended. Local leagues are the gap in the public record.