Umar Akmal, left and Babar Azam (Agency Images)

Former Pakistan cricketer Umar Akmal has addressed the controversy over his recent post comparing Pakistan’s performances in T20 World Cups. Akmal emphasized that he never intended to compare himself with Babar Azam or disrespect him.Akmal shared a collage highlighting two contrasting innings for Pakistan. The first featured his own performance against Australia in the 2014 T20 World Cup, where he scored 94 off 54 balls, helping Pakistan recover from 25-2 to 191-5 and secure a 16-run victory. The second image showed Babar Azam’s innings against England in the 2026 T20 World Cup, where he scored 25 off 24 balls, and Pakistan could only manage 164, allowing England to win in the final over.

On X, Akmal clarified that the post was meant to suggest that Babar’s batting style is not suited for the middle-order, and was not intended to demean the Pakistan captain.“I want to clarify that my aim was never to compare myself with Babar Azam. He is currently one of the top batters in the world, and I have great respect for his achievements. My intention was only to highlight that he is not naturally a middle-order batter in T20 cricket, as that position doesn’t fully suit his batting style. There was no comparison — just a point about role suitability in the format. It was just a fan repost and was not deliberately edited in any way,” wrote Akmal on X.