Kamran Akmal: “This is indeed not fair to Umar, and I’d request [the] chairman and chief selector, Haroon Rasheed, to think about it and consider it closely”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Kamran Akmal has called on Pakistan chief selector Haroon Rasheed to consider picking his brother Umar Akmal in the national team.
He noted that performance cannot be the reason why Umar isn’t getting selected, pointing out that many other middle order batsmen are in the team despite only managing to make scores of around 30.
Kamran added that Umar has not been given a fair chance and wants Rasheed to seriously think about including him in the side in the future.
“It is clear as a bell that performance isn’t the criteria here since players with scores around 30 [or] 32 as their highest are still part of the team. This is indeed not fair to Umar, and I’d request [the] chairman and chief selector, Haroon Rasheed, to think about it and consider it closely,” he said on his YouTube channel as quoted by Cricket Pakistan.
Umar, 33, recently played for the Quetta Gladiators in the 2023 Pakistan Super League (PSL), where he scored 95 runs in six matches at an average of 23.75 and a strike-rate of 186.27.
Pakistan will now travel to Sri Lanka to play a two-Test series in Galle and Colombo from July 16 to 28.
Pakistan Squad for Sri Lanka Test Series:Â Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (vc & wk), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Muhammad Huraira, Mohammad Nawaz, Naseem Shah, Noman Ali, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood