Pakistan allrounder Shahid Afridi’s ODI career has a question mark hanging over it after he was dropped twice in the last six months following poor runs, but he remains hopeful of making a comeback for the upcoming West Indies series and is keen on playing both shorter formats.
In the 21 ODIs he has played since January 2012, Afridi has picked up 15 wickets at 57.13 and scored 308 runs at 19.25. While he is an automatic selection in the Twenty20 squad, he last made an ODI comeback on the tour to South Africa earlier this year, where he remained wicketless and scored 126 in four innings with a high score of 88. He was subsequently dropped from the Champions Trophy, and has not played competitive cricket since April.
Now, though, he is pushing himself hard to be ready for the West Indies series that begins with a practice one-dayer on July 11. He has been training at the NationalCricketAcademy in Lahore over the past couple of weeks, and he passed the fitness test he was subjected to. The Pakistan selectors will meet in Lahore on Wednesday afternoon to finalise the squad, and Afridi said he still had the desire and skills to make the team. “I am doing my best and working so hard in the nets at the NationalCricketAcademy over the past two-three weeks. I have working on many areas of the game and I want to play both [shorter] forms of the game.
“I think I am still better than lots of players; there should be professional jealousy in me. I know how important my performance is as a senior player for the team. You can’t judge a player based only on Twenty20 performance.”
Dropping “match-winners”, Afridi said, was not the way to go. Key players, he said, even when they lose form, should “stay with the team”. “Poor form doesn’t really reflect that a player is at the wrong side of his game,” he was quoted by Cricinfo. “Those players who are around with the team for years and are also match-winners should be kept with the team to boost their confidence. Teams are carrying their match-winners like David Warner [despite him being suspended]. You can’t be in form if you stay out of the team.”
Afridi its high time for you to say good bye to the game of cricket, don't take what your kids tell you about your performance, very seriously. Let some fresh and young cricketers put a new life into the dying game of cricket in Pakistan.
Shahid Afridi is nothing but a BIG FAT ZERO.
Yeah, I agree, he is "better than a lot of players" but they have long since retired
And those better than him can't get on the team because of worthless ****** like him….
Shameless fell still uses "BOOM, BOOM" when he is all "BUST, BUST"
Bet you right now he is busy making another Pepsi commercial….Pepsi ko bhi abhi tak aql nahi aaee…..
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