Akmal had slammed ex-Pakistan coach Arthur for giving too much importance to fitness.
Mickey Arthur didn't gel up well with the Akmal brothers during his coaching stint with Pakistan. The verbal attacks on each other have only increased between them over the years.
Kamran Akmal had slammed Arthur for giving too much importance to fitness and not picking the right talent in the team. He even blamed the ex-coach for creating a mess of Pakistan cricket. Mickey has responded to Kamran by revealing the wicket-keeper batsman failed two fitness tests.
Arthur also said he never pays attention to the statements by the Akmal brothers. "Just look at what happened to Kamran Akmal. Kamran Akmal is a comfort zone player. He couldn’t field. Sarfraz Ahmed was captain. He wasn’t going to be the wicket-keeper. We took him on a West Indies tour and he was average at best. Kamran Akmal failed two fitness tests.
"So to be honest, anything that the Akmals say, I don’t listen to at all. Anything they say, I just take with a pinch of salt," Arthur told Cricbuzz.
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Arthur and Umar Akmal, Kamran's younger brother, have also had a go at each other. The South African said Umar is amiable but needed guidance at the start of his career.
“It’s definitely too late for him [Umar Akmal] now. It’s sad because he is a likable enough bloke but what he needed was a real firm hand at the start of his career to guide him properly,” Arthur told Pinch Hitter magazine.
He further opined, “I don’t think he got the right messages earlier in his career because if he had, he wouldn’t have gone down the route he has chosen to. He was frustrating to work with.”
Under the coaching of Arthur, Pakistan won the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 by beating India in the final. His stint with Pakistan ended in 2019 and he took over to the Sri Lanka cricket team's head coach position.
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)