Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal Biography

Kamran Akmal is a Pakistani cricketer who has been on many occasions Pakistan's lifesaver and handed them victory single-handedly. Akmal was born on 13 January 1982 in Lahore, Pakistan and is a right-handed wicket keeper batsman.

A strong player of cut and pull shots, Akmal has always been a strong adversary, especially against India. The flexibility of batting positions which Akmal provided made him a great asset to the team. He could open the innings while giving a brisk start as well as provide stability while batting in the middle order.

Background

Akmal used to play cricket with his brothers in childhood who also became professional cricketers. Akmal made his way into the Pakistan Under-15 team and played in the Lombard Challenge Cup in England in 1996.

He then moved to the Under-19 level and made his first-class debut for Lahore in 1997 when he was only 15 years old. He continued to make good leaps through consistent performances and was included in Pakistan A squad to play against England in 1999.

He scored a total of 800 runs in the 2001 first-class season and came onto the selector's radar.

Debut

Akmal made his international in a test match against Zimbabwe at Harare in November 2002. He scored a total of 38 runs in his debut match. He then registered his maiden Test fifty in his next test match at Bulawayo.

He made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe a week later at Bulawayo but did not get to bat in the match. However, he scored 24 runs in his next match of the series. He aggregated a total of 95 runs in the five-match series.

Rise to Glory

Akmal was an aggressive batsman and always batted with a healthy strike rate and unsettled the opposition's bowling line ups with his crisp stroke play.

After his debut series, Akmal scored his maiden ODI hundred against West Indies at Brisbane in the third match of the VB Series in January 2005. He scored 124 runs off 125 balls while opening the batting as Pakistan won the match.

After a series of low scores, he came back to form in 2005 and scored his second ODI hundred against England at Lahore scoring 102 runs off 111 balls. He followed it up with another hundred in the next match of the series while opening the batting.

He also carried this form in Test cricket and in the first test match of the series against India at Mohali, he scored a defying hundred in the second innings while batting at number eight. He scored 109 runs off 154 balls.

He again played a defying inning and took Pakistan away from troubled waters in 2006 against India at Karachi where he rescued Pakistan from 35/6 to take them to 245.

Low Points

Akmal career has been plagued with his inconsistent wicket-keeping. In the second test match of the 2009 Pakistan tour of Australia at Sydney, Akmal dropped four catches, including three of Michael Hussey. Hussey scored an unbeaten 134 as Pakistan lost the match by 36 runs.

It was later alleged that Akmal was involved in match fixing along with Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and both were dropped from the team pending investigation.

Stats

Akmal has featured in 53 test matches and scored 2648 runs at an average of 30.79, including six hundreds and 12 fifties in them and also affected 206 dismissals as a wicketkeeper. He has also featured in 157 ODIs and scored 3236 runs at 26.09.

In the shortest format, he has scored 987 runs at 21.00 including 5 fifties in 58 T20I matches and affected 60 dismissals in the format.