QF Australia vs. Pakistan 20th March 2015 @ Adelaide (3rd QF)

[ekumunng]

Re: QF Australia vs. Pakistan 20th March 2015 @ Adelaide (3rd QF)

@Sa1eem

It would have been better to say that … thanks Misbah that you made sure only toddlers get in team so that a boy like you, with your tuk tuk, seems good.

[One reason Fawad was not included in team, and was always ignored, was that performance of Misbah looks good].

As for Afridi: I think with whatever fault he has, he is not proper batsman that one should expect runs from him, neither he is world class bowler (he is average bowler). But together, as pinch hitter and useful slow arm (leg break) bowler, he has done good job. Anyhow, because Pakistan have no proper batsmen in team, consisting of 3rd class batsmen, some started looking at Afridi as batsman too and start expecting too much from him.

Just imagine … in test:

Afridi (not batsman) … who played 48 innings, has Ave 36.5 @SR 87 … with 5 centuries … is better than most Pakistani batsmen .. for instance, looking at test matches, we see the performance:

Shahid Afridi … played 48 innings, Ave 36.5 @ SR 87 … 5 centuries
Umar Akmal … played 30 innings, Ave 35.8 @SR 66 … 1 century
Amir Sohail … played 83 innings, Ave 35.3 @SR 55.3 … 5 centuries
Shoaib Malik … played 54 innings, Ave 33.5 @SR 44.4 … 2 centuries
Ramaiz Raja … played 92 innings, Ave 32 … 2 centuries

So we can see that Shahdi Afridi is better batsmen than many .. and as for ODIs, he plays as pinch hitter and is the only Pakistani whose SR (117) is above 100.

With these stats he should play test cricket then… but guess the irony, who announced retirement from the test cricket during England series! The guy never considered himself good enough for test matches and left on his own but still he gets applause for the stats.

Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik along with Hafeez, Imran (Nazir & Farhat) are useless. It is much better to try Fawad in place of Umer Akmal, at least he will not habitually get out by giving simple catches. Misbah is way ahead of all these people that you’ve and I’ve mentioned. At least his average speaks for itself. In a team where players took oath on “Quran” to not follow their captain, he carried whatever set of players he had with dignity and honor. The captain before him was caught red handed along with two bowlers in spot-fixing. The fact that we did not hear any such incident in his time is worth praising on its own.

I’m not saying that Afridi has not done anything for Pakistan cricket, he was main contributor for the T20 world cup win in England and some memorable match performances but that’s it. We could never rely on him to win us a series or a tournament. Being the experienced player he was supposed to stand there like Watson stood for Australia today, weather the storm and still score run a ball. How many times that happened in his 395 match career.

In the end, your words perfectly sum up Afridi, “he is not proper batsman…, neither he is world class bowler”. Yes he was an average player who had some moments of glory and who happened to be there because of good fortune, showmanship, and lack of replacement. But now its time to say good bye!!!