Umar Akmal’s Witty Remarks About Virat Kohli Triggers a Backlash

Umar Akmal, the Pakistan batsman, just like his fellow teammates, is no stranger to making witty comments which only draws ferocious reaction from the public. During a post-match presentation after the Pakistan Super League (PSL) clash between Lahore Qalandars and Islamabad United, in which Akmal played a match-winning knock (62 off 42), the right-handed batsman replied after being compared with Virat Kohli, and although the point was valid to some extent, his statements were not easy to digest.

For the record, both Umar Akmal and Virat Kohli kicked-off their respective careers around the 2008 U-19 World Cup and almost after a decade, comparisons between the two have been drawn on many such occasions. While Kohli has answered such question without saying much but hinting everything, Umar Akmal has found it hard to tackle them.

However, when one looks at the stats of both these players since their debut, there is an obvious difference. While Akmal has scored 3,044 runs in 116 ODIs that he has played with a modest average of 34.59 Virat Kohli on the other hand, has 7,775 ODI runs under his belt from 179 games, including 27 tons (Akmal has just two).

Coming to T20Is, where the actual comparison has been triggered by Cricket pundits on several occasions, Umar has 1690 runs under his belt in 82 games including eight half-centuries and Kohli has made 1709 runs including 16 fifties in 48.

However, both these players are capable of changing their gears as per the demand of the situation and have been regarded as one of the most dependable players for their respective teams.

Furthermore, when a comparison between two stark personalities having a huge statistical difference, happens, the lesser tends to get irked by it. However, Cricket being a Gentleman’s game, players have to tackle such situations with maturity and should give the respect their colleagues deserve.

But that was not the case with Umar Akmal. Here is what he said after being compared with Virat Kohli during the post-match presentation.

“Look, you know more than me. When people compare me with Kohli, it’s not fair.”

“It’s a matter of batting positions,” quipped Akmal. “Since his (Kohli) debut, he is batting at No. 3 and I have been playing at No. 6. Let me play at 3 and Kohli at 6, then compare me to him.”

“Compare him with Babar Azam, who is doing well at 3. He is in great form, so you can compare him with Babar.”

Like I said earlier, Umar has a point, but challenging a player like Virat Kohli publically is not the right thing to do. Rather, he should have accepted the challenge and answered in a more competitively digestible way possible.

However, Twitter has a tendency of ripping apart the ones with ‘Foot in Mouth’ disease and while Virat Kohli fans must be enjoying this, Umar Akmal must be having it the other way around.

The reality

Insults

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