Umar Akmal (Urdu, ; born 26 May 1990) is a Pakistani cricketer who played for Pakistan national cricket team between 2009 and 2019. He was banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board for eighteen months for not disclosing offers related to spot fixing until August 2021.
Akmal made his One Day International (ODI) debut on 1 August 2009 against Sri Lanka, his Twenty20 International (T20I) debut on 12 August 2009 also against Sri Lanka, and his Test debut against New Zealand on 23 November 2009. He is a right-handed batsman and a part-time spinner. Like his two brothers, Adnan and Kamran, Umar has kept wicket for the national team in many ODIs.
Domestically, he played for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited for eleven years, before signing with United Bank Limited in August 2017. He has also played in many franchise Twenty20 teams around the world.
In February 2020, he was suspended by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), after he had breached their Anti-Corruption code. In April 2020, the PCB banned him from cricket for three years, after he pled guilty to failing to report corrupt approaches. The following month, he lodged an appeal against his ban. In July 2020, Akmal's ban was reduced to one-and-a-half years, with his suspension running from February 2020 to August 2021. In August 2020, the PCB appealed the ban reduction to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and Akmal appealed to the CAS to have his ban overturned. In February 2021, the CAS reduced the ban to 12 months and imposed a PKR 4.25 million (27,000 USD) fine on Akmal.
In July 2021, Akmal apologised for not reporting corrupt approaches last year, which led to him being banned for 12 months. He then left Pakistan to sign a short-term contract with the Northern California Cricket Association in the United States.
Early and personal life He was born to Mohammad Akmal Siddique, "a very senior administrator in Pakistan cricket", in a family of eight children, with seven sons who all played cricket at some point but many went to business, and one daughter. He is the youngest brother of Adnan Akmal and Kamran Akmal who are also cricketers, both wicket-keepers. He is also the cousin of Pakistani batsman Babar Azam.
In 2014 he married Noor Amna, the daughter of Pakistan leg-spinner Abdul Qadir.
Early career and domestic career
Akmal represented Pakistan in the 2008 U/19 Cricket World Cup in Malaysia. After his success at the U-19 level he earned himself a first-class contract and played the 2007–08 season of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, representing the Sui Northern Gas team.
He is an aggressive style cricketer. In only his sixth first-class match he scored 248 off just 225 deliveries, including four sixes. He followed that up with an unbeaten 186 in his 8th first-class match, off just 170 balls. He fared less well in his second season of first-class cricket, with a string of low scores batting at number 3.
He found form in the final few matches of the 2008/09 season and then in the RBS T20 tournament which led to him getting selected to play for Pakistan A side on their tour to Australia A.
Akmal came to prominence during the Australia A tour in June/July 2009. In the two unofficial Test matches he recorded scores of 54, 100*, 130, 0. In the unofficial ODI series that followed, Akmal continued his fine form with a century in the opening ODI encounter off just 68 deliveries. These performances made him gather considerable praise from the media who were there to witness him and calls began to grow about his inclusion in the ODI series for the main Pakistan side against Sri Lanka. Later that year, Akmal made his Test, ODI, and T20I debut.
He played for Sui Northern Gas in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy until 2016–17, during which time Sui Northern Gas won three times (2007-08, 2014-15, 2015-16). However, he was briefly dropped from the first-class side for the 2012 President's Trophy. Akmal played for United Bank Limited in 2017–18, and for Habib Bank Limited in 2018-19 and won the 2018–19 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy with Habib Bank Limited.
Akmal played for the Lahore Lions in the National T20 Cup until 2015–16, during which time Lahore Lions won the tournament three times (2010-11, 2012-13, 2013-14).
Akmal played for Balochistan in the 2016 Pakistan Cup. He captained Punjab in the 2017 Pakistan Cup, with Punjab finishing 4th out of 5th.
In April 2018, he was named in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's squad for the 2018 Pakistan Cup. He was the leading run-scorer for Habib Bank Limited in the 2018–19 Quaid-e-Azam One Day Cup, with 410 runs in ten matches. In March 2019, he was named in Baluchistan's squad for the 2019 Pakistan Cup. In the opening match of the tournament, he scored 136 not out, his highest total in List A cricket. He was the leading run-scorer in the tournament, with 342 runs in five matches.
In September 2019, he was named in Central Punjab's squad for the 2019–20 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy tournament. Central Punjab won the tournament and Akmal was named man of the match in the final.
Test career
Akmal made his Test debut against New Zealand at Dunedin on 23 November 2009. On the third day of his debut Test, Akmal hit 129 runs from 160 balls becoming only the second Pakistani to score a hundred on debut away from home after Fawad Alam.
This feat also made him the first Pakistani batsman to score both his maiden Test and ODI century away from home, following his ODI century against Sri Lanka. The innings was noted as special due to Pakistan's tough position in the match and the hundred partnership which Akmal was involved in alongside his elder brother Kamran. He followed up the century in the first innings with a fifty in the second innings.
In only his second Test match he was moved up the order to the crucial spot of number 3, where he struggled initially but managed to counter-attack making 46 runs before he was undone by an inswinger by Daryl Tuffey. In the second innings he was moved down the order to his usual batting spot of number 5 as captain Mohammed Yousuf chose to bat at number 3 himself, and Akmal looked his usual aggressive self throughout his innings of 52 runs which came off only 33 balls.
He had his first failure in the first innings of the third Test at Napier where he was caught in the gully for a duck but scored a rearguard 77 in the second, promoting him to the leading run scorer of the series. Akmal finished the tour with 379 runs at an average of 63.16.
Akmal played his last Test match in the one-off test against Zimbabwe in 2011. Akmal scored only 15 in that match and was dropped from the Test team thereafter and has yet to be recalled.
ODI and Twenty20 career In an interview, Akmal said "My own dream is to one day play for Pakistan alongside Kamran Bhai (Akmal's brother) and I'm working hard to try and achieve that goal". Akmal was selected in Pakistan's squad for the One Day International Series against Sri Lanka in July–August 2009.
After not playing in the first ODI, Akmal made his debut in the second match of the series replacing Mohammad Yousuf in the middle order. In only his second career ODI, Akmal scored his maiden ODI fifty. He followed up his maiden fifty by scoring a century in the very next match. For this match winning effort he was awarded his career's first Man of the Match award. His exploits in Sri Lanka earned him a place in the Pakistan squad for the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy.
His 41 not out against West Indies was a match winning knock and landed him his second career Man of the Match award. His next big innings came in the semi-final against New Zealand, where he scored a brisk 55 in a losing effort, before he was wrongly given out by umpire Simon Taufel, who later apologized.
Despite the fact that Akmal is not a wicket-keeper he kept wicket for Pakistan temporarily in the third ODI against England in 2010 from the 27th over onwards because his elder brother Kamran was being diagnosed for an injury to his finger. Umar Akmal scored 71 runs from 52 balls in his debut World Cup match and was named Man of the Match.
In February 2012, Pakistan faced England in four ODIs. Pakistan's brittle batting meant the team management chose to play Akmal as a wicket-keeper based on his batting, though his brother Adnan was considered the better 'keeper'. The result of choosing the less accomplished glovesman was that in the first two matches Umar Akmal missed opportunities to dismiss Ravi Bopara and Alastair Cook early in their innings, and they respectively went on to score a half-century and a century.
Akmal was included in Pakistan's squad for the 2012 World Twenty20. Pakistan made it to the semifinal where they lost to Sri Lanka.
Akmal was dropped from ODI series against Sri Lanka in 2015, but called up for the T20I series. He proved his value to the team, by scoring 24-ball 46 runs in the first T20I match.
Akmal was initially suspended from Pakistan's T20I series against England for attending a party without PCB permission, but was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing and allowed to go on tour. Akmal scored only 26 runs across 3 innings in that series.
Akmal was initially suspended from Pakistan's first T20I against New Zealand due to an incident in the final of the recently concluded Quaid-e-Azam trophy. However, the suspension was lifted on appeal. Akmal was the highest run scorer of the T20 series for the Pakistanis with 85 runs across three innings with one fifty.
Akmal played in the 2016 World Twenty20. Akmal was dropped from the T20 side afterwards. He was also dropped from a training camp afterwards for disciplinary issues.
Akmal was recalled to the T20 side for the series against West Indies. He played one game with a high score of 1*.
Akmal was dropped from the ODI side for the series against West Indies due to fitness issues. He was later recalled and included in the ODI squad for the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy only to fail a fitness test shortly before the tournament. Akmal was subsequently sent back and was replaced by Haris Sohail.
Akmal was dropped from PCB's list of centrally contracted players on 12 July 2017 due to persistent fitness issues.
In March 2019, Akmal was recalled to the ODI squad for their series against Australia in the UAE. He scored 150 runs across 5 innings at an average of 30 and failed to cross 50 in the entire series. In addition, he was fined 20% of his match fee for breaking team curfew ahead of the 5th ODI.
Akmal was not picked for the 2019 Cricket World Cup squad.
In October 2019, Umar Akmal was recalled to the T20 side for Pakistan's home series against Sri Lanka. However, he scored two golden ducks in the first two games of the series and was subsequently dropped. As a result, he equalled Tillekaratne Dilshan's unwanted record for scoring the most ducks in T20Is with 10. Umar Akmal has the record for scoring the second most ducks in Twenty 20 cricket history (27) just behind Dwayne Smith.
T20 franchise career Pakistan Super League Akmal was bought by Lahore Qalandars for US$140,000 in 2016 season. He performed well and ended up as the highest runs-scorer in PSL 2016 scoring 335 runs in seven innings with four half-centuries. His team didn't qualify for play-offs and finished last in the group stage. He was retained by Lahore Qalandars for 2nd season. He finished the season with 164 runs from 8 matches with only one fifty. He was again retained by Qalandars for 3rd season. He was eventually dropped by Lahore Qalandars for later part of the tournament for his below par performance and disciplinary issues.
Akmal joined Quetta Gladiators for 4th season as a result of a trade. He scored 277 runs in 12 matches in the tournament.