Umar Akmal, left, and Babar Azam (Agency Images) Former Pakistan cricketer Umar Akmal has addressed the controversy over his recent post comparing Pakistan’s performances in the T20 World Cup. Akmal emphasized that he never intended to compare or disrespect Babar Azam.Akmal shared a collage highlighting two contrasting innings for Pakistan. The first featured his own performance against Australia in the 2014 T20 World Cup, where he scored 94 off 54 balls to help Pakistan recover from 25-2 to 191-5 to secure a 16-run victory. The second image shows Babar Azam’s innings against England in the 2026 T20 World Cup, where he scored 25 off 24 balls and Pakistan could only manage 164, allowing England to win the final.
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On X, Akmal clarified that the post was intended to suggest that Babar’s batting style was not suitable for the middle order and was not intended to demean the Pakistan captain.“I want to make it clear that it was never my intention to compare myself to Babar Azam. He is currently one of the best batsmen in the world and I have great respect for his achievements. My intention was only to point out that he is not naturally a middle-order batsman in T20 cricket as that position does not fully suit his style of batting. There was no comparison – it was not just a point about the appropriateness of reposting in a fan-edited way,” Akmal wrote on X.
