Just who is this guy Umar Akmal? Oh, he is that son-in-law of great leggie Abdul Qadir. That short, stout guy who did a ‘Fred Astaire’ at brother Adnan Akmal’s wedding? Yeah that’s him, the scourge of all traffic sergeants in Lahore who would love to book him for over-speeding. Or, if they are lucky, for hurling threats million miles an hour.
Well, some say he can bat a bit too! Yeah, but not for the team, only for himself. And the attention span is barely two overs. Ok, make it three, but that’s it. He really loves to give his wicket when set. And boy, does he make you cry with that ‘all is lost’ expression that he has quite made his own.
So why is he in the squad for the Sri Lanka T20 series? He is certainly not there for his batting, nor for his keeping, nor making faces. Any guesses then? Perhaps, he is going out to the Island to meet his long lost brother Suranga Lakmal who was compelled to take on the pseudonym and migrate to Sri Lanka since the PCB could not put up with yet another sibling of the Akmal family.
However, the bottom line is that Umar is back in the national squad. Why, nobody knows. He can surely give the fielders a catching practice to remember. Or maybe he is an efficient caddy who loves to carry skipper Shahid Afridi’s kit bag in exchange for some ding-dong bubble that he keeps chewing on the field.
But seriously, does he have anything of note to show at the domestic circuit to get picked yet again for Pakistan? Absolutely not, mainly because he is such a bad listener. So many of his coaches and senior players have repeatedly told him to concentrate, to not throw his wicket at crucial times, but all in vain.
So often have they advised him to go back to the drawing board but he has been found watching ‘Art Attack’ instead on the popular Disney Junior channel. He is just a kid, you know, who loves to compare himself to ‘Smoking Jo’ (Sir Viv Richards of the West Indies) all the time without ever accomplishing much.
So, will he ever learn to translate his ‘talent’ on the field? Well, Ramiz Raja, for one, has a lot of faith in him and believes the diminutive chap has what it takes to make it big in the game. What Ramiz doesn’t know is that Umar has made it big already. Along with brothers Kamran and Adnan, Umar Akmal holds the dubious distinction of getting dropped from either of the three formats for ninety nine times.
Sri Lanka series will be the hundredth such instance. Bravo!
Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015
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