Arfan Akram (Arabic: عَرْفَان أَكْرَم) (born 17 November 1983) is a British

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. Akram played second XI cricket for

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

between 2001 and 2003, during which time he also played minor counties and

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

for

Essex Cricket Board The Essex Cricket Board is the governing body for all recreational cricket in the historic county of Essex. From 1999 to 2003 the Board fielded a team in the English domestic one-day tournament, matches which had List-A status.Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

. While studying leisure and tourism at

Anglia Polytechnic University Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after John Ruskin in ...

, between 2002 and 2005, he played for

Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence Cambridge University Cricket Club, first recorded in 1817, is the representative cricket club for students of the University of Cambridge. Depending on the circumstances of each individual match, the club has always been recognised as holding f ...

, including eight first-class matches. Akram continued playing amateur cricket as captain of Wanstead and Snaresbrook CC, alongside his twin brother

Adnan Adnan ( ar, عدنان, 'adnān) is the traditional ancestor of the Adnanite Arabs of Northern, Western, Eastern and Central Arabia, as opposed to the Qahtanite Arabs of Southern Arabia who descend from Qahtan. His ancestry can be traced back t ...

; he also played for the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) between 2006 and 2018. In 2010, Akram was selected as one of 21 players to form the first

Unicorns The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since Classical antiquity, antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn (anatomy), horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicor ...

squad to take part in the

Clydesdale Bank 40 The ECB40, last known as the Yorkshire Bank 40 (YB40) for sponsorship reasons, was a forty-over limited overs cricket competition for the English first-class counties. It began in the 2010 English cricket season as a replacement for the Pro40 a ...

domestic

limited overs Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket or white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty ...

competition against the regular first-class counties. The Unicorns were made up of 15 former county cricket professionals and 6 young cricketers looking to make it in the professional game.Cricinfo staff
Unicorns name squad for Clydesdale Bank 40
13 April 2010,

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved on 2 May 2010. In 2012, Akram was working as the university cricket co-ordinator at the

University of East London , mottoeng = Knowledge and the fulfilment of vows , established = 1898 – West Ham Technical Institute1952 – West Ham College of Technology1970 – North East London Polytechnic1989 – Polytechnic of East London ...

, after which he worked for Essex Cricket as their cricket co-ordinator for East London.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Akram, Arfan English cricketers Unicorns cricketers 1983 births English people of Pakistani descent Living people Essex Cricket Board cricketers English twins Cambridge MCCU cricketers British Asian cricketers British people of Pakistani descent Alumni of Anglia Ruskin University