He is better than his stats show. Don't forget he often opens for Pakistan in both ODIs and Test matches which is not easy. After keeping for 2 days it not easy to open the batting.
Sir jee with due respect these figures are slightly wrong. Moin has 4 test hundreds and 15 fifties. Rashid Latif has only 1 test hundred and 7 fifties. Kamran Akmal's (49*) test average is 30.98 and he has scored 1673 runs (35th match) with 4 hundreds and 6 fifties.
The respective averages of Moin and Rashid as listed by you are correct though
My point was he is much better than his stats suggest. He might have dropped a few catches but opening after fielding for 4 sessions isn't easy but he has made 50's in each innings in this test.
Akaml dropped Kallis on 2 and then he ended up scoring 86 and taking the match away from Pakistan and also getting the joint man of the series. Thanks of Akmal, we lose another series. Though today we could have won had Misbah & Afridi played sensibility like batsmen and Afridi like the 2nd senior batsmen in the team. Pathetic man!!!
Both Akmal and Misbah should be dropped if they don't perform well in the next tournament against India. Dropping them now and picking inexperienced players will be disastrous.
^ like its not disastrous already. I think he should be dropped forever and ever and ever, immediately. Without wasting a single day. Any young keeper will not be worse than him. Atleast he will have oppertunity to groom with Akhtar, Asif and Kaneria/Afridi bowling. Akmal can't be close to Moin Khan ever, let alone the mighty Rashid Latif.
We don't need you Akmal, go back to your hole with your 'kaikraa' smile. I hate you more than when I first saw you three years ago. Choo30ye!
In my personal opinion, Akmal continues to be in the team not because of his wicketkeeping skills - but for his uncanny ability to contribute significantly with the bat now and again.
From what I read on this forum, there doesn't seem to be any potential wicketkeeper in Pak's domestic cricket with equal or better batting skills.
He definetly needs to go..no doubt. Neither his keeping or batting is of international level. He performs with the bat once in 10 games and keeps his spot inspite of his poor keeping in every single game. No doubt, the catch he dropped of Kallis cost Pakistan the series.
^ like its not disastrous already. I think he should be dropped forever and ever and ever, immediately. Without wasting a single day. Any young keeper will not be worse than him. Atleast he will have oppertunity to groom with Akhtar, Asif and Kaneria/Afridi bowling. Akmal can't be close to Moin Khan ever, let alone the mighty Rashid Latif.
We don't need you Akmal, go back to your hole with your 'kaikraa' smile. I hate you more than when I first saw you three years ago. Choo30ye!
In my personal opinion, Akmal continues to be in the team not because of his wicketkeeping skills - but for his uncanny ability to contribute significantly with the bat now and again.
From what I read on this forum, there doesn't seem to be any potential wicketkeeper in Pak's domestic cricket with equal or better batting skills.
The thing is Some1, he hasn't done anything significant with the bat for the past year either. Meaningless 40's to 70's here and there, which don't really matter in my book. The guy needs to go.
The ONLY reason Akmal is in the team is because of his batting skills. His place in the team has nothing to do with his keeping. The dilemma Pakistan faces is they don't have place for two "specalist" openers in the playing 11. With Akhtar, Asif and Gul leading the fast bowling, Rehman and Afridi leading the spin department and Misbah also in the team, it leaves no room for 2 specialist openers.
Thats why during the whole SA-Pak series, we saw either Afridi or Akmal opening along with Nazir or Hameed.
This is the only reason Akmal is managing to stay in the team; his ability to open the innings as there is no other keeper in Pakistan who can open the innings. Plus, he usually does better than our "specialist" openers anyway.
Having said all that, I'd love to see him get dropped for good...I just cant stand his horrible keeping anymore. I strongly believe he is always one of the main culprits behind Pakistan's loses.
I am surprised why we haven't given chance to any other wicket keeper yet... i mean i didn't knew Kamran Akmal before he came to the national side... so i m sure there will be tens of keepers if not in hundreds in the domestic cricket... and as nobody keep track of domestic cricket so we don't know if there r better ones or not... and i m sure there will be better one than him... otherwise i think let Younis keeps the wicket... he won't do better than Kamran Akmal.
I don't know why we have a trend in our life that if somebody is not doing his own job good but can contribute partially to some other things than he is good enough... His batting skills should only be considered if his Wicketkeeping skills are there.. and if he doesn't know wicketkeeping then drop him and ask him to apply as a batsman to judge him if he can get a place in the team as a batsman.
If a keeper drops a simple catch it not only means to get the wicket again but it also means a drop in the morale of the bowlers and i think he has totally ruined the career of spinners esp Danish in test... couple of catches in every match is simply untolerable... people get axed dropping couple of catches in the entire series and he is still continuing...
Thats really pathetic... it seems to me that Kamran Akmal is having the direct backing of BUSH... :)
Adam Gilchrist is the man responsible for all this crap about wicketkeeper batsman a must in all sides. Aussies got one and then everyone wanted a keeper who can bat. The problem is Gilchrist is a fantastic keeper and a solid batsman most other teams (besides Srilanka) havnet had the same luck. Akmal is a half way decent batsman but when you drop a catch of a batsman and that too someone like Kallis your batting skill then counts for nothing. I'd rather have a keeper who can barley hold the bat but doesnt miss any catches or stumpings then a keeper who bats well but drops people like Ponting, Kallis, Sangakara or Pieterson. After dropping these players your batting skills count for nothing as your one drop might just cost your team the match. If Akmal would have taken that Gibbs catch yesterday who knows what the situation would have been, I am not justifying the horrible batting collapse but just a fact that Akmal contributed in this defeat as well with his dropped catch of a guy who then took Saffies off to a flier.
so who is 1st, 3rd, 4th? 