Cricket moves into the fast lane at 100mph

Cricket – the game once referred to as "organised loafing" and "baseball on Valium"– hurtled into a new era yesterday when a man known as the Rawalpindi Express became the first official 100mph bowler.

Shoaib Akhtar, the Pakistani paceman who has said God put him on Earth to break the 100mph barrier, achieved his feat when he sent a ball towards the New Zealand batsman Craig McMillan at 100.4mph.

His delivery in Lahore was the cricketing equivalent of the four-minute-mile and shattered the 1976 record of 99.8mph set by the Australian Jeff Thomson. The 100mph barrier has been looking vulnerable ever since Akhtar began a race to get there first against the Australian bowler Brett Lee, who recently reached 98.4mph.