17th July 2006, 09:12
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PakPassion Moderator
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Debut: Oct 2004
Venue: Apnay ghar mai - aur kahan ?
Runs: 37,043
Wickets: 2,699
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From supercharged leg-break to swish of the bat....(Guardian)
And Afridi hits the headlines....
Quote:
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket...1822188,00.html
From supercharged leg-break to swish of the bat Afridi ensures there is never a dull moment
Lawrence Booth at Lord's
Monday July 17, 2006
The Guardian
Shahid Afridi said three months ago he would be retiring temporarily from Test matches to concentrate on one-day cricket until next year's World Cup. Yesterday, as he tried desperately to inject some life into a passage of play whose risk-free sterility was everything Afridi is not, he might have wondered about the wisdom of being persuaded to change his mind.
Afridi knows no other way than to go for broke. He retired, he said, because he was worried about burn-out, although it has been suggested he was merely throwing a strop after being dropped for a Test in Sri Lanka. But, if there is a box office somewhere in his home region of the Khyber Agency, there is every chance Afridi was born in it.
He trades mainly on his ferocious hitting - his strike rate of 86 is well clear of anyone else who has scored 1,000 Test runs - but he bowls whippy leg-breaks with the mind-set of an angry fast bowler and yesterday he was obliged, in part by Pakistan's injury crisis, to get through a 17-over spell that produced, joyously, the wicket of Kevin Pietersen and a bewildering array of grimaces and gurns. England's batsmen were playing one game; Afridi wanted to play another.
Among spin bowlers perhaps only Shane Warne has more to say to the batsmen. When Afridi is not running an impatient hand through his luxuriant mane, he is generally chuntering at anyone who has had the temerity to steal a single, or throwing his hands up in pantomime-dame despair as a brisk leggie rips unjustly past the outside edge. On Friday he sent down an 80mph bullet to Monty Panesar, which may have been Test cricket's fastest leg-break since Bill O'Reilly called it a day in 1946. It raised eyebrows and oozed irritation.
There may be more irritation to come. Pakistan's bowling resources have been further depleted by the news that Mohammad Asif has flown home because of his elbow injury - he is being replaced by Iftikhar Anjum, a 25-year-old seamer, while the off-spinning all-rounder Shoaib Malik, another with elbow trouble, is making way for Taufeeq Umar - so Afridi can expect to get through plenty more overs before the summer is out.
If that means any concerns over burn-out will have to be put on hold, then his temperament is unlikely to change. Yesterday his view of England's caution was neatly summed up by the wild overthrows he donated from short fine-leg to usher Andrew Strauss to 98. There is little Afridi does that can be called studious but the way he ignored Inzamam-ul-Haq's glare from midwicket demanded determination of the highest order. Far more characteristic was the jump of delight that greeted the demise of Pietersen, lured to his doom and beaten by the turn.
Afridi is at his happiest when things are happening. When play was held up by an exploding drinks machine during the Faisalabad Test against England in November, he cured his boredom by pirouetting on a good length in full view of the cameras and duly collecting a three-match ban. Yesterday morning, perhaps restless after being made to wait until the depths of No9, he hooked his second ball from Steve Harmison over the keeper's head for four.
When Matthew Hoggard was asked last year to name the world's most intimidating batsman, his answer - quick as a flash - was Afridi. Now he squirted Hoggard to third man for four and hammered him down the ground while the bowler was still completing his follow-through. Two balls later Afridi tried something similar but this time Ian Bell was waiting.
It looked daft but then his career has never felt more than a miscue away from apparent daftness. In truth it was just another Afridi moment in a universe which he presumably believes needs more of them. After yesterday's grind the hope is that it could be a template for the rest of the series.
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