Tag: Shahid Afridi

2 minute readWe’re not generally in favour of hackneyed caricatures, but we’ll make one exception: Pakistan the unpredictable. Pakistan’s cricket team are generally portrayed as equal parts genius and slapstick and with a capacity for self-destruction unrivalled even by Slash. (“I was pissed off at myself for having died. It really ate

< 1 minute readOut of form and out of practice, Pakistan were playing like a cutlery drawer full of spoons at the start of the tournament but literally improved with every game. Shahid Afridi played like a grown-up today, which is again missing the point of Shahid Afridi. But being as he won

< 1 minute readIt pains us that a whole generation of young cricket watchers won’t ‘get’ Shahid Afridi. Even after watching him hit 51 off 34 balls, they still won’t get it. Twenty20 has legitimised the Shahid Afridi approach to batting and legitimacy has no place in the world of Shahid Afridi. Shahid

< 1 minute readShahid Afridi embodies the reasons why cricket needs Pakistan. Here’s a man who’s most famous for his ludicrously single-minded determination to hit every balll he faces into the moon, as if it’s somehow wronged him with its offensive nocturnal luminescence. That’s Shahid Afridi’s thing. That’s what he does. Yet he’s

< 1 minute readShahid Afridi seems to be quite the Twenty20 bowler. As skchai said in the comments: “Perhaps that is another aspect of his “Afridiness” – he is only effective bowling to other Afridis (not the members of his Pashtun clan, but rather players who play like him).” Perhaps the ‘what would

2 minute readBecause the Twenty20 World Cup is Shahid Afridi’s, surely. Against Scotland yesterday, he hit 22 off seven balls, which is actually useful in Twenty20 cricket and then took 4-19, which is useful in any form of cricket. We originally thought that Twenty20 cricket wouldn’t show Afridi in his best light.