http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Moin-Khan-c77092 – Cricket News Update
Former http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 captain, Moin Khan, has backed the young middle-order batsman, Umar Akmal, to bat higher up the order in limited-over cricket for Pakistan and feels that the right-hander has the potential to make it big at the international stage.
The 22-year-old is often criticised for his wrong shot-selection and some of the cricketing ranks believe that the batsman from Lahore is not fulfilling his potential at the ultimate level of the sport.
Akmal played a couple of rash strokes to get out in the recently concluded two-match T20 series in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758. However, the youngest of the three Akmal-brothers has been the best Pakistani batsman in limited-overs cricket since the last three years.
The aggressive batsman is currently at number 10 in the International Cricket Council’s (http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625) batting rankings, above any other Pakistani batsman.
In his article for Dawn, a Pakistani daily, the former wicketkeeper/batsman stated that there is no doubt about Umar’s potential but the youngster needs to improve his temperament, if he wants to perform consistently for the country.
Umar has expressed a number of times that he wants to bat higher in order to make a bigger contribution to the team’s cause and Moin thinks that there is no harm in it.
“He is a very highly talented cricketer but lacks maturity. He shouldn’t be so hasty in his stroke-play and should calm down a bit. There has been some discussion over his batting spot. Apparently he wants to bat up the order but isn’t being given a chance
there,” the former skipper said.
Moin believes that Akmal is a complete batsman who has every shot in the book and the Green Shirts will benefit if the talented cricketer can have more overs to bat in the shorter formats of the game.
He added while commenting on Akmal’s batting-order, “The way he is able to take singles as well as hit boundaries, he could be really useful at higher batting spots. His shot-execution is excellent. His defence is also strong. I feel that he should bat at
number three or four, so that his best performance can be extracted.”
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