Shahid Afridi scored 50 in his first match as Pakistan’s T20 captain. Shahid paced his innings with a lot of maturity and and according to the match situation, it was an innings uncharacteristic of Afridi.
Afridi averaged 13.33 under Malik, under Younis his average improved after Younis announced his retirement from T20′s and proposed Afridi’s name as his successor, since then Afridi has been batting a lot responsibily something which everybody believed that he is incapable of doing, he stubbornly refused to change his batting style under different captains.
It is strange how 13 years of stubborness and irresponsibilty can change overnight, it makes me wonder that does he plays for himself or the country? Why he couldn’t change his behavior earlier when the whole world was asking him to do so?
But anyways I wish that this change is a permanent one as it was the only drawback in Afridi’s game, otherwise he is an excellent bowler, an excellent fielder and a good captain.
It seems that Pakistan are going to win the match quite comfortably.
I think this line up is going to continue for Pakistan in T20′s in near future, the only change which I forsee is that Umar Gul will return in place of Rana or Rao.
Pakistan won by 52 runs, Srilanka’s middle order again failed if their top four don’t fire they normally lose this has been established.
Pakistan were lucky that they posted 172, Imran Nazir played an ugly innings although he scored a quick 40 but he got a few chances all those ugly swipes he missed made his innings looked ugly, I think if he has to become a test or an Odi player he will have to improve his shot selection.
I was disgusted by the shot Malik played he looked like a street player, you cannot attempt such shots at international level, if he has to retain his position in Odi’s and T20 he should show the ability to score consistently on all kinds of tracks otherwise Pakistan are wasting all the time they are investing on him.