'Charbee kahan hai?' - Umar Akmal asks trainers by taking off his shirt after failing fitness test

Umar Akmal has been out of the international cricket for a while, despite a brief appearance in the green in the home series against Sri Lanka a little while back. The mercurial batsman couldn’t do much in the two matches he played and has been since put on the back burner in terms of selection, as PCB went back to veterans Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez in recent T20I series against Bangladesh.

Umar once termed as one of the most talented batsmen in Pakistan, made quite a debut, scoring a ton against New Zealand in Dunedin Test in 2009 and was a mainstay of the team until 2015-16, before poor form and fitness led him to be dropped in favor of Sarfaraz Ahmed behind the stumps and the rise of Babar Azam with the bat in limited-overs cricket. His Test career has not moved forward since playing his last match in 2011 against Zimbabwe.

Umar Akmal takes off shirt asking PCB trainers to show fat on his body

Umar Akmal has continued to churn out runs for Central Punjab in the ongoing Quaid-E-Azam Trophy and has scored 122 and 218 in his last six innings for his team. The double ton came against Northern and had 20 fours and 8 sixes in the innings. This led to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) selectors calling Akmal for a fitness test.

Unfortunately for the former wicketkeeper-batsman, he couldn’t manage to get the required points on the fitness test and was not happy with the result. Umar gave an extreme reaction to his failure and in frustration, took off his shirt and asked the trainers to show where is the fat on his body. The selectors reported the incident to the PCB head and it is expected that harsh punishment will be given to Umar for his outburst.

In 16 Tests for Pakistan, Umar Akmal made 1003 runs with one century and 6 fifties. While in 121 ODIs, he has 3194 runs with 2 centuries with the highest score of 102*, and in 84 T20I matches, Akmal has made 1690 runs with the highest score of 94 and 8 half-centuries to his name. the right-hander has a terrific record in the shortest format of the game with over 5500 runs in 260 T20 matches with 33 fifties and 1 century at a strike rate of 130.73.