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The only thing faster than Shoaib Akhtar's bowling is his lifestyle. ``Anyone seen Shoaib this morning?'' I inquired at the Pakistan team hotel on Thursday. ``Yes, I did,'' said a friend. ``At about 2am on the dance floor.''

Obviously, rest and relaxation are not top of his list of daily priorities. He can sniff out a party at a thousand metres and strutted his stuff in white suit and pink shirt at a Birmingham nightclub recently, conveying more than a hint of John Travolta. His cricketing prowess and film-star looks have had girls from Leeds to London throwing themselves at him.

``Marry me, Shoaib, please, take me,'' a posse of Asian girls begged him below the balcony at the Oval last week. There are frequent suggestions that he does not offer much resistance. He is quickly becoming the Eddie Irvine of international cricket. As unrestrained off the track as he is on it.

As soon as you meet him, it's obvious why he's so popular. He's warm and friendly, with a megawatt smile and a twinkle in his eye. He flirted with a pretty Turkish waitress as we sat down to breakfast, calling her darling, and chivalrously offering to help with her chores. He urged her to watch tomorrow's final. ``I'll bowl them out, I will,'' he promised without pretence, not knowing at that stage who the opponents would be. There is a refreshing lack of inhibition about everything he does and says. He is the kind of dashing showman that sport's general culture of relentlessness badly needs.

``People say I'm arrogant on the field,'' he said. ``I have to be arrogant otherwise I'm not aggressive, and that's where my pace comes from. I'm playing for my country. It's my job to be arrogant and aggressive. I want to entertain, too. But once I'm away from the game, I like to be sociable and make friends.'

This he took to its ultimate extreme in Northern Ireland last summer. Paid £7,500 to play a season for Strabane, near Londonderry, he took few wickets but won numerous admirers, some of whom came to the semi-final on Wednesday.

``They're fantastic people,'' Shoaib said. ``And it was wonderful over there. They really know how to have a good time. I hardly slept for six months. I'm going back there to relax for a few weeks straight after the final.''

The Emerald Isle has had such an influence, in fact, his slightly gabbled Asian diction is now laced with Irish vowels.

The green, forested hills of County Tyrone are quite a contrast from Shoaib's roots among the hustle and bustle of stifling, dusty Rawalpindi. The fourth son of an oil refinery supervisor, he was a jobless teenager in the mid-1990s whose only cricket experience was gleaned from watching TV and playing on concrete with a taped-up tennis ball. Wherever you go in Pakistan, you see playgrounds full of boys tearing into bowl, shirt-tails flapping, in the image of Wasim and Waqar.

Shoaib was just another until, according to him, in late 1996 he was spotted by the president of the Rawalpindi Cricket Association, and invited to play in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, their first-class cricket. He took 69 wickets in his first season and also blitzed seven of the New Zealand tourists in a practice game. ``That was when I first realised I was quick,'' he said.

He toured England with the Pakistan A team the following year. His first over on tour, at Trent Bridge, was wild - containing four no-balls and costing 17 runs - and so was some of his behaviour. Perpetual late nights and unpunctuality gave him, despite several devastating spells, a poor tour report which, when properly scrutinised by the national selectors, caused him to be dropped from a Pakistan one-day international squad he had just been picked for.

He eventually made his Test debut at the end of 1997 against the West Indies and fully redeemed himself with tremendous bowling in South Africa in early 1998. A 96mph delivery was clocked during his five for 43 in Durban, the fastest recorded in the modern era, though the successive yorkers that cleaned up Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar (first ball) in front of 90,000 Indians in Calcutta four months ago, cannot have been far behind. Suddenly he was being dubbed the Rawalpindi Express, though as this ramshackle vehicle from Lahore potters along at barely 30mph, the analogy is largely inappropriate.

Pounding in off his 22-pace run, his mop of hair flapping, cheeks quivering, he makes a fabulous sight - except to the batsman. ``You know,'' he said, ``I watch myself on TV and I don't believe it. I never thought I looked like that.'' Now he has allied extreme pace to remarkable control. As Imran Khan has said: ``It's incredible how someone can bowl so fast and still be so accurate.''

Imran regularly pops into the dressing-room and passes on tips, notably one to reduce his run-up slightly, and Wasim is always on hand for advice at mid-off, but there's no doubt Waqar Younis has had the most powerful influence. There is an uncanny resemblance in run-up and action, and Shoaib's ``gather'' - the last-second contraction of the body that is the source of his pace - and delivery, are pure Waqar.

``I really idolise him,'' Shoaib says. ``I love the way he runs, the way he bowls, the way he talks. I always respect him. He's helped me a lot.

``And now,'' he adds with a mischievious grin, ``I'm going to beat him.''

He wants to play a season or two of county cricket, like Waqar did, and also wears the boots Waqar uses - hand-made, and costing £400 a pair, from Mason's in Sutton Coldfield. And deliveries like the searing yorker that uprooted Stephen Fleming's leg-stump on Wednesday bear a legacy of Waqar; the pace, the late reverse swing, the hopelessness of the batsman's plight. In late 1990s parlance, Fleming was well and truly 'Shoaib-ed'.

He remembers watching the 1992 World Cup final on TV. ``Wasim was bowling really fast and I was thinking, 'God he's so quick.' Then I listened to Imran's winning speech, holding the cup in the twilight of his career, and I thought 'He's so handsome' and I also thought I would love to be a little part of that next time, help to do it the way they did it.''

Aside from the odd bout of ill-discipline - he missed the team coach from Nottingham to Manchester this week and had to be driven up by the assistant manager - he is less rebellious and works out in the swimming pool and the gym. The aims are both professional and ever so slightly narcissistic. He has bowled the fastest ball in this World Cup - 95mph against South Africa - and even his slower ball homes in at 73. But he thinks a 100mph delivery isn't possible tomorrow.

``There's so much pressure on us and I'm so tired right now. We've been playing non-stop for six months.''

Just imagine what he could do if he had a good night's sleep.