Kamran Akmal terms Waqar Younis as a 'failure'

Pakistani cricketer Kamran Akmal has taken a massive dig at one of Pakistan’s greatest bowler of all time, Waqar Younis. Akmal blamed Waqar of causing a lot of harm to Pakistan cricket in his two separate spells as the coach. According to Akmal, the legendary bowler was a failure as the head coach of the Pakistan cricket team.

What Akmal had to say:

Akmal also pointed out that Younis tried out a lot of experiments and benched top notch players which took Pakistan cricket backwards. Waqar Younis served as the coach in 2010-2011 and 2014-2016.

“Waqar bhai was a failure as coach and he caused 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 said on Geo Supper Channel.

Waqar Younis is facing such harsh criticism for the first time from a Pakistani cricketer. After the team suffered a horrific loss against the Indians in the World T20, Waqar Younis was forced to quit the role of the head coach.

“I don’t know but he had issues with some players. He had no plans on how to take Pakistan team forward. An example was when he went to the World Cup 2015 and asked Younis Khan to open the innings or his issues on playing Sarfraz Ahmed late in the tournament,” added Kamran Akmal.

However, Kamran also claimed that Waqar did not give some of the players to adapt to the situations and settle down with the team. “I remember Umar Akmal scored a hundred in a Asia Cup match and next match he was batting behind Shahid Afridi and others. Waqar no doubt was a great player for Pakistan but as a coach he was a failure.” said Akmal.

Kamran Akmal also highlighted the fact that during Waqar’s term as the head coach, Pakistan’s ranking in all three formats of the game took a beating. “He took six to seven new players to Bangladesh after the World Cup and the result was we lost the one-day and T20 series for the first time to them,” “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.” said Akmal.