‘It’s not about winning ICC Player of the Year awards’: Akhtar’s explosive dig

Pakistan’s legendary former pacer Shoaib Akhtar had been making headlines over the past few weeks over his comments on the side’s current captain, Babar Azam.

Criticising Babar’s communication skills, Akhtar claimed that the Pakistan skipper hasn’t become a “brand” in the country because he has trouble speaking in English. The comments from Akhtar didn’t go down well with many fans and former cricketers alike, with a majority of them insisting that Babar’s cricketing skills matter more than the skipper’s communication abilities.

However, it seems Akhtar remains unmoved in his opinion as he made a veiled remark on the Pakistan captain again, during a chat on the country’s news channel Suno News. The former Pakistan speedster was talking about Azam Khan when he took a cheeky dig at Babar; Azam has set the Pakistan Super League (PSL) on fire with consistent performances for his side Islamabad United.

In the franchise’s previous match against Karachi Kings, Azam scored an unbeaten 72 off just 41 deliveries as United chased down a 202-run target with four balls to spare.

“I found Azam Khan as a responsible guy who can build the innings, not just slog. He spoke smartly in the interview as well, and it felt nice to hear him speak like that as he talked about his performance. When I was playing 20 years ago, I didn’t care how I spoke. But in today’s era, being in media is a part of your job. I can only indicate and pin-point for you, ‘this is a problem, please go and correct it. It’s for your own benefit’. He (Azam) looked like a captaincy material with the way he spoke,” Akhtar said.

Further talking about the same, Akhtar casually namedropped the ‘ICC Player of the Year’ tag, insisting that winning the title isn’t enough for a player to “become a star.” Interestingly, Babar had won the award earlier this year.

“When Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shahid Afridi, and Abdul Razzaq used to play, they would say, ‘the whole ground and its crowd is mine. I control the atmosphere in this place’. And Azam was controlling that. That’s how you become a star. It’s not just about winning ICC Player of the Year awards, no no. The things Azam did… crowd backed him, he took their ownership. He was like, ‘I’m here to run the show’,” said Akhtar.