Does Shahid Afridi need a break?

By Jawad Hussain
 

Shahid Afridi amid toughest time of his international cricket career

KARACHI, Pakistan (TheSportsNEXT) October 13, 2012: Former captain of Pakistan cricket team Moin Khan said Friday that struggling top all-rounder Shahid Khan Afridi should take a brief break from the game after a disappointing ICC World Twenty20 2012.

 

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Shahid Afridi had a nightmarish ICC World Twenty20 2012 where he seldom scored runs and lacked confidence in his bowling as he was belted for runs while he also failed to regain his in-drift which used to trouble batsmen in the past.

While cricket experts like Dr. Nauman Niaz and Younus Khan are of the belief that a surgery on his back has stopped him from bending it the way he used to which is why he can’t find his drift into the right-handers but his recent slump in form has surely something to do with his mental state and of course a rift in the team.

Shahid Afridi led Pakistan to very much a similar result in the 2011 ICC World Cup what Mohammad Hafeez produced but Afridi had to leave the captaincy for his great work after the then coach Waqar Younis found disliking for him and he along with the then manager hatched conspiracies against the hard-hitting all-rounder which eventually forced Ijaz Butt to remove him from captaincy.

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Since then, Shahid Afridi has been in and out of the national cricket team but the BoomBoom resurrected his career last year when he rocked Sri Lanka in United Arab Emirates and since then he had been producing match-winning performances for Pakistan consistently.

However, when you talk about Pakistan cricket, you always know you’re talking about politics. Only when Shahid Afridi started producing massive performances, a group in the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), which doesn’t like Afridi in the team, started a new wave of conspiracies which disrupted his concentration as he was made to fight on two battlefields.

The increased pressure of performance in a cricket team which lacks quality players kept gaining size for Shahid Afridi and the extra pressure of dealing with the haters in the board put him to the sword and he started finding it tough to keep his consistency in the field.

Not a lot of people were in favor of Shahid Afridi’s inclusion in the ICC World Twenty20 side and they kept doing their bit to get the Boom Boom out of the squad but he somehow managed to get a place for him.

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A lot was expected from Shahid Afridi but politics in the dressing room kept dismantling his psyche and he found it tough to perform in the field as fielders looked less-enthusiastic to stop boundaries off his bowling while he didn’t get some decisions in his favor which added fuel to the fire.

In recent years, Shahid Afridi has extracted confidence from his bowling rather than his batting and when he found little support by his teammates off his bowling, naturally his batting got affected and he lost his touch with the bat, scoring a series of Ducks.

In such dire circumstances, Moin Khan’s advice has just the right idea for Shahid Afridi who needs some time with his family and friends to think about his future and his game as he needs to work it out in the nets.

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Moin Khan rightly disagreed with the repeated calls of international retirement for Shahid Afridi and said that the flamboyant all-rounder should continue playing international cricket as he still has plenty of cricket left in him.

"I don't think he should retire. I sincerely believe he can still serve Pakistan cricket for a few more years. All he needs to do now is take a break from the game, spend some time with his family and come back before the India tour fresh and confident," Moin stated.

Disagreeing with the people suggesting Afridi to call it quits, Moin Khan said, “I don't agree with this notion. Afridi is clearly short on confidence while batting and this is affecting his overall performance. He needs to take a break and regain his focus because he remains a valuable player for Pakistan”.