Umar Akmal was irritating to work with: Mickey Arthur

Former Pakistan Cricket team coach Mickey Arthur talked about the difficulties of coaching cricketers like Umar Akmal. In an interview with the Pinch Hitter journal, Arthur was quoted as saying that due to lack of proper guidance at the beginning of his career, his career graph fell off and now it’s too late for him to pick up the pieces, redeem himself, and push for a spot in the Pakistan Cricket team.

“It’s positively too late for him [Umar Akmal] now. It’s unhappy as a result of he’s a likeable sufficient bloke however what he wanted was an actual agency hand in the beginning of his profession to information him correctly,” the former Pakistan and South Africa Cricket team coach said.

Umar Akmal burst into the International scene with a hundred on Test debut against New Zealand at Dunedin back in November 2009. He had also scored an ODI hundred on his third game against Sri Lanka 3 months before that. Despite doing well in the remainder of the Test series, with a gritty 46 and a 33 ball 52 in the second Test having to deal with the adjustments in his batting position, Umar could not quite justify his talent. Although he was a regular in the Pakistan squad across format throughout the mid 2010s, disciplinary and fitness issues have played a massive role in stalling his progress, and with the aid of mismanagement on the part of the Cricket Board, his career graph fell over, in a comically tragic fashion.

“I don’t suppose he received the best messages earlier in his profession as a result of if he had, he wouldn’t have gone down the route he has chosen to. He was irritating to work with,” the South African said.

ALSO READ: Umar Akmal suspended for violating PCB’s anti-corruption code

Arthur also revealed that despite having a lot of talent and potential, Wahab Riaz has not performed to his full strength.

“I had one notable spat with Wahab Riaz, and we spoke brazenly about it as properly. I felt Wahab had a lot capability and potential and on the level we left him out of the facet, he wasn’t simply fulfilling that potential,” the South African added.

Despite having 113 ODI and 83 Test wickets, Wahab’s best exhibition of bowling in a Pakistani shirt came in the 2015 World Cup Quarter Final Down Under against hosts and eventual champions Australia, as he kept Shane Watson on his toes by extracting vicious carry off the pitch. Wahab almost had his man caught at square leg, but much to every Pakistani’s dismay that day, Rahat Ali, the stationed fielder at square leg, dropped an absolute sitter with Watson on 4. He went on to make 64 as Australia won by 6 wickets. That spell drew plenty of plaudits from numerous past and current Cricketers all around the World, including a tweet from Brian Lara wanting to meet the left arm quick. Wahab, too expressed his gratitude to him and invited him to his country.

Mickey Arthur also had praises for Babar Azam, whom he reckons is among the best of batsmen in World Cricket at the moment. Arthur has shared a special bond with the current talismanic Pakistani number 3, even acknowledging the fact that people have often taunted Babar by calling him Arthur’s love child, but he hasn’t paid heed to them. Arthur mentioned that Azam has been capable of playing to his potential throughout and if he maintains to do so, the Lahore born batsman might end up being a 10,000 run Test Cricketer.