by The Professor » Fri Jan 13, 2017 7:55 am
On this day in 1982 Pakistan's Kamran Akmal was born.
Kamran Akmal was born to a family of Cricketers and his brothers, Adnan and Umar, are also Cricketers.
Akmal first rose to worldwide prominence in 2006 when he scored seven centuries for Pakistan over the course of one Summer. This, however, proved to be his high water mark for the Pakistan team and he was eventually dropped in 2008 for a combination of poor batting and wicketkeeping.
Despite being dropped from the longer formats, Akmal still represented Pakistan in T20s. His performance behind the stumps in the 2009 World Cup was particularly creditable. Akmal also showed his T20 skills in the inaugural IPL season where he played for Rajasthan.
His form in the shorter form of the games saw him briefly return into the Test squad in 2010. His spell back in the Pakistan team was brought to an end when he was embroiled in a match fixing allegation involving dropped catches in the Test series against Australia. He was also caught up in the scandal for which Mohammad Amir, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were prosecuted. He had a spell away from cricket while these allegations were investigated. On them being dropped, in 2012 he returned to the ODI team.
Despite his performances in the longer form of the game being limited, Akmal proved he still had it when he was the top scorer in last season's Quaid-e-Azam trophy.
"It has been said of the unseen army of the dead, on their everlasting march, that when they are passing a rural cricket ground the Englishman falls out of the ranks for a moment to look over the gate and smile."