Shahid Khan Afridi has always been very lucky and has always made idiotic decisions. There is a long list of blunders he has made during his 18-year career.
He retired from Test cricket in 2006 although his record in Test cricket was much better than in One-day cricket. He had a much better batting average in Test than one-day and was also successful with the ball.
In Australia a few years later, he brought shame to the nation by tempering the ball during a match. He had been playing cricket for 14 years and didn’t know that every action of every player can be recorded on camera.
Then, he was appointed captain for the tour of England in 2010 but announced his retirement from Test in a press conference after the team lost the first test against Australia. Compare him with Mahendra Singh Dhoni of India who retired from the longest format of cricket during the series against Australia but did not announce it himself. He let the board do it through a written statement.
Then Afridi left captaincy of the one-day team a year later owing to differences with Waqar Younis. He should have stood his ground and forced the board to remove Waqar who was bent upon having players he liked in the team.
Now Afridi has made another blunder. He announced he will retire from one-day cricket after the world cup. Why did he do that! Didn’t he know that Misbah was going to retire after the world cup? He is still only 35 and can play for three to four more years. He could have been made the captain. He should have remained silent about his plans. But it looks, as always, he didn’t bother to have consultation with anyone and just made the announcement.
There is no better player than him to lead the team right now. In the past four years, he has matured as a batsman and his bowling has become more lethal. So why shouldn’t he continue in the 50-overs format? He may go on and reach 10,000 runs and 500 wickets. Why does he want to stop at 8,000 runs and 400 wickets, which he will achieve during the World Cup?
He has flourished as a bowling all rounder in the last four years, giving a number of match-winning performances in one-day cricket, excelling with the bat as well as with the ball. On a few occasions, he won the match for Pakistan single-handedly. Â Who can forget his two sixes off Ashwin in Asia Cup 2014 which gave Pakistan a one-wicket victory!
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