Former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram is one of the most well-known cricketers to have been diagnosed with diabetes. In a recent Stick to Cricket podcast, the ex-Pakistan pacer revealed how a conversation with his father led to him taking a blood sugar test in 1997.
“I got diagnosed in 1997. I started losing weight, my vision was a bit blurred, I was thirsty all the time, I was urinating a lot and my dad came up to me and said have you blood sugar test. I was like what the heck is blood sugar? Those days in the 90s, there was no awareness of diabetes at all,” he said.
“And I then went and had my blood test done. If it’s usually you are diabetes normal like you guys, it’s 100 or 110. Mine was 450. So I obviously went to the specialist and he said you have to be on insulin straight away. I said what the heck is insulin? Then in those days, there weren’t these disposable pens like we have now. Those days you have to have certain vials with your bottles with you and big syringes on the side. So it was tough,” he added.
Why he used to give sweets to umpires
The express seamer, considered to be one of the best Pakistan players of all tine, also revealed that while playing a match, he used to hand umpires sweet tablets in case his blood sugar level dropped.
Wasim Akram opens up on his diabetes diagnosis and how it affected his playing career ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/lKPTu8Jh9A
— Stick to Cricket (@StickToCricket) August 21, 2025
“First two to three years, it did affect my game mentally and physically. I think my late wife also helped a lot being a psychologist. Then I asked the doctor only one thing. I said look, will I be able to play cricket? He said yes, if you control your levels. And it’s very difficult to control your levels when you are travelling. And you don’t have any awareness. What to eat, what not to eat, what to drink and when I went to South Africa, I think when I joined Pakistan team after being diagnosed, first three four weeks were very tough,” he said.
“And you sugar level drops as well when you are diabetic and you can feel it. Now it’s been 25 years, now I can feel it very late. In the beginning, you can feel something is not right. Then you have some chocolates, some sweets so everybody helped, the whole team chipped in the time they knew what it was. I used to give sweets like this to umpires just in case my sugar levels drops. A couple of tablets, get on with it. Usually takes 15-20 mins to recover but I just got used to eat,” Akram added.
