Kamran Akmal accuses Waqar Younis of damaging Pakistan cricket

LAHORE: Kamran Akmal on Thursday accused Waqar Younis of damaging Pakistan cricket while adding the ex-skipper was not able to guide the team to success during his two separate tenures as the head coach.

Reiterating his point, the disgruntled Kamran said that in his enthusiasm to ‘experiment’, the fast bowling great sidelined important players, which put the national team lagging behind by two to three years.

“With due respect, Waqar was a failure as a coach and he caused a lot of damage to Pakistan cricket. In his enthusiasm to experiment and sideline established players, he put the national team back by two to three years,” Kamran told a private TV channel.

This is the first time that a current Pakistan player has openly criticised Waqar who was forced to step down after the national side fared poorly in the last World Twenty held in India in 2016.

“I don’t know the reasons but Waqar certainly had issues with some players. He had no plans on how to take Pakistan forward. An example was when he went to the 2015 World Cup and asked Younis Khan to open the innings and then sidelined Sarfraz Ahmed until late in the tournament,” the wicket-keeper/batsman, who appeared in 53 Tests and 157 One-day Internationals, remarked.

Kamran also blamed Waqar for not allowing players to settle down in the team.

“I can remember Umar Akmal scored a hundred in an Asia Cup match and in the next game he was batting behind Shahid Afridi and others. Waqar no doubt was a great player for Pakistan but as a coach, he was a total failure,” he said.

Pointing out Pakistan’s poor performance during Waqar’s tenure as coach, Kamran said: “He took six to seven new players to Bangladesh after the World Cup and the result was we lost both the one-day and T20 series for the first time against them.”

He further added that the authorities should have learned from Waqar’s first tenure in 2010-11 in the role of head coach.

“I have played under different coaches including Bob Woolmer and I can say they used to plan and they used to create a rapport with the players. Waqar insisted on training hard all the time and not having the players also focus on their skills and cricket development was damaging to the team,” Kamran revealed.

Kamran recalled the moment when he received a national call-up for the tour to the West Indies and Waqar, who also served as head between and 2014 and 2016, questioned his selection and the need to have two keepers in the side.

“The best part is that Waqar as a coach himself kept two keepers on the side,” he pointed out.