Published 08:50 IST, January 22nd 2020
'Virat Kohli is lucky' says Kamran Akmal as he lashes out at PCB for neglecting players
Pakistan's yesteryear wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal on Tuesday deemed Indian skipper Virat Kohli to be a 'lucky' player and slammed PCB for neglecting its players
Pakistan's yesteryear wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal on Tuesday deemed Indian skipper Virat Kohli to be a 'lucky' player. Akmal attributed the Indian skipper's success in international cricket to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for supporting the batsman and showing confidence in him. Earlier, the wicketkeeper-batsman was ignored by chief selector-cum-head coach Misbah-ul-Haq for the upcoming Bangladesh T20 series beginning on Thursday.
'Pak team could get players better than Kohli'
Speaking to Pakistan daily, Akmal said that Virat Kohli is fantastic but is also lucky that the BCCI supports him and shows confidence him that allows the ace batsman to succeed. He added that the respect that Kohli gets from the Indian board motivates him to do well for the team. Furthermore, he slammed the Pakistan Cricket Board for not supporting young players in Pakistan enough and claimed that if the board did so, the Pakistan team would get players better than Virat Kohli.
The out-of-favour wicketkeeper-batsman also compared the cash-rich Indian Premier League with the Pakistan Super League and weighed the latter more. He stated that if there was a team of PSL players put together to compete against a team of IPL players than the PSL team would come out on top.
Akmal slams former coach Mickey Arthur
Earlier, Kamran Akmal had slammed former coach Mickey Arthur for bringing in the culture of fitness tests in the Pakistan team. He had said that it was Arthur who started setting fitness as the biggest criteria for picking and dropping players. He even went to the extent of saying that Pakistan cricket was on a decline.
He also said these policies won’t make players focus on fitness and because of such policies, Pakistan cricket was going down. Akmal added that the likes of Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shoaib Akhtar contributed the most for Pakistan due to their single-minded focus on batting and bowling respectively and not the way they looked or kept fit.
Kamran Akmal went on to question about the number of fitness tests Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq had given during their times. He added that Mickey Arthur, who came to Pakistan, started the problem of fitness tests.
Updated 08:50 IST, January 22nd 2020