Wasim Akram has opened up on a cocaine addiction that left him unable to sleep or eat.<br /><br />Akram, 56, retired 19 years ago as a World Cup winner with Pakistan and as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time.<br /><br />But he soon turned to drugs as ‘a substitute for the adrenaline rush of competition, which I sorely missed, or to take advantage of the opportunity, which I’d never had.’<br /><br />In an interview with the Times he admitted he was worried that the revelations in his upcoming autobiography ‘Sultan: A Memoir’ would disappoint fans. ‘I liked to party,’ he says in his book. ‘Worst of all, I developed a dependence on cocaine.<br /><br />‘It started innocuously enough when I was offered a line at a party in England; my use grew steadily more serious.<br /><br />‘One line would become two, two would become four; four would become a gram, a gram would become two. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat.<br /><br />‘Like a lot of addicts, part of me welcomed discovery: the secrecy had been exhausting.’
