Shoaib Akhtar yesterday sent a special word of thanks to Andrew Flintoff for the moment the all-rounder jokingly called him 'Tarzan' - and gave him all the ammunition he needed to tear into England's batsmen.

Shoaib is not the 'Lord of the Jungle', rather the 'King of the Punjab', after taking 22 wickets in five matches against England over the past month.

Flintoff, who himself has fallen prey three times in the course of three Tests and two one-dayers, could be forgiven for ruing the day - during the ICC Super Series in Australia which preceded England's winter commitments - that he decided to bait the world's fastest bowler with some good-natured banter.

''Freddie Flintoff made a comment. He was talking about my physique," Shoaib recalled, on the eve of the third one-day international between England and Pakistan in Karachi.

"He said 'He may be Tarzan but he cannot bowl'. It was just a joke he made when we were in Australia, but all I say is thanks for keeping me focused. It made me realise that something needed to be done, that I definitely had a point to prove.''

Shoaib could hardly have done so more emphatically, most recently with a five-wicket haul in Lahore, where Pakistan levelled the one-day series as sleepy England failed to show their true form after a late night spent receiving awards from the BBC in recognition of their unexpected Ashes success.

Pakistan's number one strike bowler has shown England's premier all-rounder once and for all he is anything but a paper tiger once he puts his mind to terrorising opposition batsmen.

But it was the challenge of facing the 2005 Ashes heroes this winter which also helped to rouse Shoaib, who believes the tourists may have been spooked a little from playing to their true potential by warnings of security problems in Pakistan.

Nowhere is the perceived threat more evident than in Karachi, where England must be at their best today to avoid handing the momentum back to the hosts in this five-match series.

''England like to play tough cricket - they might have learned that from Australia,'' Shoaib suggested.

''Unfortunately they haven't been able to perform as well as they should here. The security worries and cultural differences may have put them off.''

Shoaib knows what it is like to have to carry inhibiting off-field concerns on to the pitch.

Suspensions over a suspect action - he has twice been cleared - injury problems and crowd-pleasing battles with the speed gun have all threatened at times to derail the Rawalpindi Express.

But after a consultation with Dennis Lillee, the consideration of legal action against the International Cricket Council - Shoaib does not blame the governing body over their investigations into his curious but legal action - and a gradual realisation of how to mitigate against the spectre of injury, Shoaib is confident he has most things sorted.

''I was at the top of my career, at the peak of it, just finished the '99 World Cup, when things started to go wrong,'' he remembers.

''In one phone call they banned me; then three years later, it happened again. You can't concentrate on your fitness with that going on, because you're mentally exhausted.

''I had so much fame and money; then it is taken away from you. It is quite painful. But I was tough enough to make it back again.

''There have been times when I haven't got on with one or two people and comments have been made about my commitment.

''I said 'Listen, I'm ready to play cricket and serve Pakistan to the best of my ability'. I want what happened in the past to be history. Let me start with a new chapter."

The worry for the rest of world cricket is that Shoaib, whose slower ball has been a revelation which has torpedoed England, is still fired by ambition - and is confident he can bowl much better.

''I'm not running in quite as well as I can. I'm struggling a bit."

Teams: England (from): M Trescothick (captain), M Prior, A Strauss, V Solanki, P Collingwood, A Flintoff, G Jones (wkt), I Blackwell, L Plunkett, J Anderson, S Harmison, I Bell.

Pakistan (from): K Akmal (wkt), S Butt, Y Khan, M Yousuf, Inzamam-ul-Haq (captain), S Afridi, A Razzaq, S Malik, R Naved-ul-Hasan, S Akhtar, D Kaneria, M Sami, A Khan.