Pakistan's Shahid Afridi makes a run against Australia during the one day international cricket match between Pakistan and Australia in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, April 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Andrew Parsons)
In Australia, we tend to consider anything subcontinental as sub-standard. The achievements of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are usually swept under the carpet.
Tests against England, the Ashes, are still considered the ultimate, despite England losing to almost every country. South Africa and the West Indies are the other rivals to be respected.
Losses to India and Pakistan are forgotten in a hurry, as if they never happened.
“Who’s interested?” is the general comment.
Ho-hum!
But Mad Max, aka Shahid Afridi, must have given a jolt to the experts Down Under. In Dubai, he was terrific, taking a career-best 6-38, with a mixture of wrong ’uns and top spinners, then he plundered 24 runs off 16 balls (strike rate 150), punching five fours.
He was made player of match that Pakistan won by four wickets to go one-up in the five-match ODI series.
One must add that Australia was without its captain and best batsman Ricky Ponting. But it was a convincing win for Pakistan, thanks to the unpredictable genius of never-afraid Afridi.
A flamboyant and inconsistent all-rounder, Afridi has an amazing strike-rate of 111.12 in ODIs, which is scoring more than a run off every ball he has faced in 272 matches.
But there’s more.
He has scored the fastest century in ODIs. His century against Sri Lanka at Nairobi on 4 October 1996 came off 37 balls and included 11 sixes and 6 fours.
Afridi made his debut in an ODI as a 16 year-old leg-spinner. His best ODI was against England in Lahore on 27 October 2000 when he followed his 5-40 (his skidding quicker deliveries causing havoc) with a match-winning 61 off 69 balls as swarms of flies, attracted by the humidity and floodlights, descended on the ground.
His compulsive hitting kept him in and out of Test arena, but a combination of maturity on and off the field, and advice from the late coach Bob Woolmer, saw him blossom into one of modern cricket’s most dangerous players.
He went berserk against India and hit his Test best of 156 from only 128 balls at Faisalabad in January 2006.
Expect the unexpected when Shahid Afridi is in the middle, and underestimate him, and Pakistan, at your own peril, Australia.
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