{"id":179202,"date":"2025-06-12T20:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T20:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179202\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T20:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T20:02:08","slug":"pakistans-wasim-akram-praises-his-cricket-statue-amid-social-media-flak-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/179202\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan\u2019s Wasim Akram praises his cricket statue amid social media flak | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Former captain says \u2018it\u2019s the idea that matters\u2019 after his newly erected statue in Hyderabad goes viral.<\/p>\n<p>Legendary Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram has saluted the \u201ceffort\u201d of the artist who created a statue of him that has spawned scorn on social media for being far from the player\u2019s actual features.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLots of talk about my sculpture being erected at Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad. Mine is definitely better than the tiger,\u201d he said in a post on X on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the idea that matters. Credit to the creators, full marks for the effort and thanks to everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Lots  of talk about my sculpture being erected at Naiz stadium Hyderabad \u201cMine is definitely better than the tiger\u201d, btw it\u2019s the idea that matters credit to the creators &amp; full marks for the effort and thanks to everyone involved\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Eb6aOmpWH5\">pic.twitter.com\/Eb6aOmpWH5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wasimakramlive\/status\/1933020952348279153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">June 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The statue of Akram \u2013 one of the greatest left-arm fast bowlers to play the game \u2013 was installed outside the southwestern city of Hyderabad\u2019s Niaz Stadium in April, but was widely shared on social media in the past week.<\/p>\n<p>Akram is shown bowling wearing the kit of the 1999 World Cup team, when Pakistan were runners-up at the tournament in England.<\/p>\n<p>Nearby is a statue of a tiger.<\/p>\n<p>Taking a jab at the other statue, Akram added, \u201cMine is definitely better than the tiger\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One fan mocked the statue, saying, \u201cThe only thing that looks real is the ball,\u201d adding the face looked more like Hollywood hero Sylvester Stallone.<\/p>\n<p>After being the centre of social media\u2019s ire for days, the affable Akram took to social media to praise the effort.<\/p>\n<p>Niaz Stadium chief Shiraz Leghari told the AFP news agency that the artist \u201cdid his best effort, but accepts it doesn\u2019t resemble [Akram] a hundred percent .\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Statues of cricket stars near stadiums are not uncommon; Australia has a history of placing statues of their iconic players outside their stadiums, while India unveiled one of master batter Sachin Tendulkar outside a stadium in Mumbai in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Akram is one of the country\u2019s most celebrated cricketers, having represented Pakistan in 104 Tests and 356 one-day internationals with 414 and 502 wickets respectively.<\/p>\n<p>He was the leading wicket-taker in the 1992 World Cup when Pakistan claimed the trophy.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former captain says \u2018it\u2019s the idea that matters\u2019 after his newly erected statue in Hyderabad goes viral. Legendary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[42521,521,1406,12,6026,93,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-179202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-arts-and-culture","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pakistan","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114672182476997425","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}