Umar Akmal: An Objective View
Now for everyone who has been following him (yes there have been countless threads on him, many are one sided, the other are completely opposite sided), I think we need a thread looking at his stats and his opportunities. Let us break him down from the start of his career to this point taking into account everything and move from there (I will focus on ODI).
Yes, objective is not objective in this world, there is obviously subjectivity here, but I am trying to analyse as much based on stats as possible.
Umar Akmal is a right handed batsmen for Pakistan aged 23. He has an average of 37.61, which currently sits second on the Pakistani team. He has played a total of 79 matches (70 innings) with 1 century and 17 fifties. SR of 86.
Now everyone recalls how Akmal burst onto the scene with a fifty and century in his first few matches against Sri Lanka, calling him a saviour and the future of this team. Now at the time I was a sceptic. It was too good to be true of course that Pakistan had found a batsmen who other teams would fear, a potential Yousuf or Inzi, potentially even better.
Let us break it down from statsguru looking strictly at average and number of matches:
Season 2009- 64.00 (4 matches)
Season 2009/10- 34.00 (11 matches)
Season 2010- 28.25 (8 matches)
Season 2010/11- 35.81 (14 matches)
Season 2011- 55.66 (8 matches)
Season 2011/12- 38.92 (17 matches)
Season 2012- 36.50 (8 matches)
Season 2012/13- 25.00 (1 match)
Season 2013-58.33 (5 matches)
Season 2013/14- 14.33 (3 matches)
Now of course before you jump on me for my next point, yes every match counts, but clearly the last three are the EXCEPTION not the rule. The most amount of matches he has played in a season was in 2011/2012 where he averaged 38.92. This is most likely the best indicator of UA as this is when he has consistently played. I am by no means saying the last series vs WI is an indication that UA is going to be a 50 average player, and in using that same argument UA is by no means anywhere near the 14.33 he has averaged in the whopping THREE MATCHES he has recently played. This are the aberrations in his career.
Here is an interesting stat, of all the things, UA has played the most matches where we have lost the toss and fielded first, IE we were chasing and his average is the highest here with 40 matches averaging 42.52. In the matches where we have chased, his average in 39 matches is 40.88. Goes to show he is actually better at chasing than he is at batting first. Not a good quality to have necessarily, but that also makes sense considering when we bat first he may not necessarily come to build an innings but moreso come to be a finisher and getting out slogging, which is really not his position.
Now here is another good stat, when Pakistan is chasing, and we have won the match, in 19 matches he has a whopping average of 89.80.
In the WC Umar averages 48, in the Champions Trophy 49, the real big tournaments of the world.
The big teams in the world in One day are India, England Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The teams he has played the most are Australia and Sri Lanka where he averages 40.71 and 51.27. He has a poor record versus India in his 5 matches of 20.60, England of 25.55 and South Africa (4 matches total, 3 of which of course are this series where he has been poor) with an average of 25.75, the one high score being 60 before this series started. He has shown against a couple good teams he can score, and he has shown against other teams he hasn't, but again sample size is too small to judge. 5 matches v India, 4 v SA is a small size. Yes he has struggled against England and there is no covering that, but at the age of 23 he should be given the time to improve his efforts based on what he has done, not on what he has done poorly.
He has a total of 6 MOM, the only people with more is Afridi with 31 in 365 matches, Mohammad Hafeez with 10 in 132 matches and Misbah tied with 6 in 131 matches. You would say, if he doubles it to 12 by the amount of matches Misbah or Hafeez plays it's not a big deal, but the issue everyone is missing is age and curved growth. With age, players become better, and if given the opportunity, thrive.
Umar Akmals natural batting position is at #3. Everyone says "but wait then he has to face bowlers like Steyn with the new ball!", which is definitely true, but Pakistan produces some pretty good pacers as well whom he does face on a daily basis, and he has only played a total of 1 matches at three scoring 28 so it is inconclusive what he would do in his natural spot. He has only played 3 matches at #4 averaging 18 (which really isn't good but hardly a sample size). This team needs a change. Shafiq is utterly useless, Amins potential is not showing whatsoever, Half Feez makes a start and as usual throws his wicket away, and Misbah coming in blocking balls, increasing the SR and increasing pressure is not helping. What is the worst that could happen? All I have seen in the past few matches is failure up top minus Shehzad, then Akmal comes in knowing he IS the final bat and he MUST win the match. Why does he have to win the match in a desperate situation? Why can he not simply come in 1 or 2 down knowing batsmen are below him and he can ease his way in?
"But he averages 40.64 at #6", which is very true, he does, but with our batting order above him completely failing, we need to change the strategy. Instead of bringing him down the order to smash, he needs to be able to construct an innings, especially when clearly no one above him is capable of doing.
When you drop a player after a good series in WI as we all know for phantom health conditions, he is continuously going to doubt his spot on the team, and play against that which is his natural game, and play tentatively knowing this may be his last match. Ahmed Shehzad is a perfect examples, he knew after his two fifties that he is on the team for a while, and started playing his game last match. He threw his wicket away foolishly early, but at 21 I can cut him some slack as well. His averaged had jumped from 24 to 28 and he is starting to come good. We cannot keep dropping players who have shown signs, and keep players like Hafeez, Shafiq, and Amin who have never shown anything on the batting front in LOI.
Now the first match against SA was something that was ridiculous and Pakistan should have won, and his rashness is definitely a part of it. He should not have gone out for 20 and eased to the win, but hey everyone played poorly that match in batting, so to point at him is too harsh. The only real batsmen who win matches are Misbah and UA on this team historically.
He could fail, he could not amount to anything, I do not put this out of the equation, but as of right now we have a 23 year old averaging near 40 who we need to put in the right situation to succeed to help this team succeed. If this is me being a Akmal blind supporter, so be it. All I know is that his average is better than everyone not named Misbah with a SR that shows he can be a lethal player.
What everyone will probable attack me for his defending Umar Akmal. NO. Far from it, he has not done well this series at all. What I am saying is he has done a lot in his career to show that if persisted with, he could be a very good player, but this will come with bumps and bruises along the way that people will have to be patient with. One cannot praise him for last series against the Windies after 5 matches, then have a knee jerk reaction after 3 matches against SA that he should be kicked off the team.