by Abdul Habib
11th June 2010

Kamran Akmal was recently in the UK shooting for an Indian film starring Bollywood star Akshay Kumar. However with only days to go to the Asia Cup, Kamran will be turning his attention to creating a few memorable moments himself.

Kamran will go into the Asia Cup on the back of a brutal innings which left the Australian team reeling and saw the Pakistan team rack up a total of 192. Unfortunately it wasn't enough because the Aussies did what they always do and held their nerve to finish the game from an impossible situation.

During this T20 World Cup, Pakistan were the only team to score more than 150 against the impressive Australian bowling attack. In fact in the final Pakistan smashed 192 runs in their 20 overs. When I asked Kamran how they achieved this he said that the Pakistan team had wanted to beat the Aussies at their own game.

"We'd been watching Australia's matches and we noticed that their batsmen just kept coming at the opposition bowlers all the time, they were relentless. They didn't let any team stop and breathe or slow the tempo of the game down."

"The Aussies were bullying the opposition bowlers and so we decided that the only way to beat the Aussies was to bully them back. We went into the semi-final looking to bully the Aussie bowlers and not let them settle down into a rhythm. We didn't spare anyone and went after all of them, the Aussies weren't used to being attacked like this so I think the plan worked." Kamran told Cricistan.com.

When Kamran was asked whether he felt Salman Butt's innings had held the team back and stopped them reaching 200 he was quick to jump to Salman's defence.

"You have to understand that even if this is T20 cricket, partnerships are still crucial to getting a big total on the board. We had an 82 run opening partnership within 10 overs. I'm sure that the 82 run opening stand helped to take our total to 192 because it allowed the rest of our batsmen to play more freely." Kamran stated to Cricistan.com.

Kamran mentioned his brother Umar's innings saying that he was immensely proud watching Umar boss around the Australian bowlers, his only regret was that he still wasn't at the crease batting with him.

Moving on to Pakistan's dramatic exit from the T20 World Cup, Kamran Akmal was clearly disappointed but pointed out that it was down to a phenomenal innings from Hussey. He felt that sometimes a batsman has a day like that and there's not a lot you can do about it.

In closing Kamran said he was looking forward to the Asia Cup and that the Pakistan team appreciates all the support it gets from the fans.