Umar Akmal continues tirade against Mickey Arthur in response written to PCB

By
Faizan Lakhani
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KARACHI: Continuing his tirade against Mickey Arthur, middle-order batsman of Pakistani team Umar Akmal has stood by his allegations against the head coach and demanded Pakistan Cricket Board to form an enquiry committee on the matter.

In his reply to PCB’s show-cause notice, Umar says Arthur disrespected him and that no one has right to abuse and hurt anyone’s self-respect.

“It is not written anywhere in the law that any person has the legal authority to hurt [someone’s] feelings and self-respect and to disgrace and abuse a test player in front of the chief selector, Mr Inzamam-ul-Haq, Academy Coach Mr Mushtaq and others,” Umar’s reply states.

Misspelling Arthur’s name and writing it as Arthor, Umar says that he has produced excellent results for Pakistan and was shocked, disturbed and surprised to hear such words from the head coach.

“Mr Mickey Arthor has not only abused me, he [has also] abused PCB, my nation, Pakistan and its flag, which is not tolerable for any Pakistani,” he writes.

Umar adds that his training schedule was fixed with Grant Flower, a former Zimbabwean cricketer, but when he reached National Cricket Academy the coach refused to work with him.

“He ordered me not to use NCA and the staff and told me to play in my club cricket which I have been whether I am in any contract with PCB or not,” Umar says. “My timings were fixed with Grant Flower for practice but when I reached there, Grant refused to practise saying he did not have orders to work with me,” he adds.

Umar has demanded that the PCB chairperson constitutes an enquiry committee to find out the truth. If found guilty, the middle-order batsman said he will apoligise to Arthur, but would want the head coach to do the same if he is proved to be at fault.

“I have complete trust and faith in my organisation that it will solve the issue efficiently, as it is a matter of respect, dignity and pride of Pakistan and its Nation,” Umar writes in the end of his response.

Umar submitted his reply on Wednesday to the show-cause notice issued to him by the PCB following his media outburst against Arthur.

The middle-order batsman, who recently alleged that Arthur had verbally abused him in front of Inzamam, went to Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore to submit a written statement in response to the show-cause notice sent to him.

Briefly addressing the media at the PCB headquarters, Akmal said, "I had been tolerating the abusing for long."

He informed that he has recorded his statement regarding 'what happened', adding that he has been treated unjustly since the last few years. 

He added that his criticism was not aimed at the PCB, instead he only raised questions after suffering verbal abuse from the coach.

Akmal had also claimed that he was dropped from the team after an unjustified warning, and that he wanted to inform the PCB regarding the behaviour of the coaching staff.

Arthur, however, had rubbished the allegations and said the batsman was not telling the truth.

With additional input from Lahore.