Shoaib Akhtar, one of those former cricketers who are very active on social media, has declared ICC jury’s decision of declaring David Warner the man of the tournament of the T20 World Cup 2021 an unfair decision.
According to Shoaib Akhtar, it’s Babar Azam who should have been declared the man of the tournament rather than David Warner because the Pakistan captain scored more runs than Warner in a lesser number of games.
Babar actually scored 303 runs for Pakistan in 6 games at an average of 60, while Warner scored 289 runs in 7 games at an average of 48, but the reason why the ICC jury went with Warner because he scored his runs at a much faster clip than Babar and registered a strike rate of 146 as compared to Babar’s 126.
Apart from having a significantly higher strike rate, Warner was also among the most impactful batsmen for Australia in the two knockout games they won to lift the trophy. While in the game against Pakistan, Warner constantly kept putting the bowlers under pressure with his brisk knock of 49, he did the same against New Zealand in the final and scored 53 off 38 balls.
Shoaib Akhtar didn’t find a lot of support on his opinion on Twitter
It was the impact that Warner created for Australia at the top of the order, which took him ahead of Babar in the man of the tournament race. Babar also scored a lot of runs for Pakistan, but he didn’t always put Pakistan in a dominating position, and it was the lower order of Pakistan that came up with a couple of spectacular finishes.
However, Shoaib Akhtar, who was present at the Dubai International cricket stadium to watch the final, was not amused that the highest run-scorer of the tournament was overlooked for the biggest award of the tournament and he put his opinion out on Twitter. However, not a lot of people agreed with his opinion on the matter.
Was really looking forward to see @babarazam258 becoming Man of the Tournament. Unfair decision for sure.
— Shoaib Akhtar (@shoaib100mph) November 14, 2021