Shahid Afridi is dropped

Pakistan have obviously been forced into some changes with their strike bowlers all being banned. They've also made a couple of unforced changes to their Test squad for the upcoming series against the Windies.

First and foremost, Shahid Afridi's been dropped. This is pretty much unforgivable from an impartial point of view, but really you can't blame them one bit. Omar Haq provided a water-tight case in favour of dropping him a couple of weeks ago. We sympathise entirely while simultaneously wishing he was playing.

Pakistan have also dropped Mohammad Sami and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. We can understand the dropping of Sami, a gifted bowler whose confidence is subterranean, but Rana Naved-ul-Hasan's omission is puzzling to say the least.

The replacements include a slow left-armer called Abdur Rehman, who we've never heard of and Samiullah Niazi, who we love, despite never having seen him play, on the grounds that he's a left-armer and Pakistani - like Wasim Akram.

Finally, just to confirm that our cat will continue with the name Afridi, despite this setback.

A Shahid Afridi six

We've just been watching some Shahid Afridi videos because of a future update. There are lots of sixes, as you'd expect. We're expecting to be six numb later.

Hitting sixes is what Shahid Afridi does, but this one's just ludicrous:

Shahid Afridi v Sri Lanka, 100 off 37 balls - 10 Great Innings

Name: Shahid Afridi
Age: 16
Occupation: Cricketer
International innings: None
Interests: Hitting the fastest ever international hundred

That was the warning that we got. Not so much as a 'good morning'.

It wasn't his debut. He'd played once, but he wasn't called upon to bat. In his first international innings, Shahid Afridi hit the fastest ever international hundred. It was against Sri Lanka. He hit 11 sixes.

We think it was the former Lancashire opening bowler, Peter Martin, who best descibed Shahid Afridi's batting, in the wake of the most anticlimactic run-chase in living memory. Lancashire had managed a respectable 190-9 on a difficult pitch in the C&G Trophy semi-final. Their opponents were a Shahid Afridi-enriched Leicestershire.

Afridi opened the batting and hit 95 off 58 balls. Then he was out. We'd anticipated a tense climax, instead we were left watching Vince Wells and Ben Smith attempting to score 30 runs in as many overs. Anyway: Peter Martin.

Peter Martin said that he bowled one ball to Afridi that he was especially proud of during that match. It swung a little, pitched on off-stump and then seamed away alarmingly. It would have been impossible for most cricketers to lay bat on it. Shahid Afridi pivoted, adjusted for the seam movement and deposited the ball over midwicket for six.

10 Great Innings

We may get Shahid Afridi yet

As in the previous one-dayer between South Africa and Pakistan, the team batting first made a ludicrous total and the team batting second never got close.

This time, however, Pakistan batted first and they made 351-4. Younis Khan made 93, Mohammad Yousuf - who, of late, has more runs to his name than he has cells in his body - made 101 not out.

At this point, the opposition captain wouldn't want Shahid Afridi wandering to the crease on an 'on' day. Unfortunately for Graeme Smith, this is exactly what happened. Afridi hit 77 off 35 balls, including six sixes.

We sympathise with Omar as a Pakistan supporter. You never know what you're getting with Afridi and too often you get nothing. However, we're not a Pakistan supporter. We're a Pakistan admirer. Part of the allure is the unexpected and more than anything the potential for outright mayhem.

There is, quite literally, no batsman we would rather watch than Shahid Afridi. A six or the fall of his wicket never seems more than a ball whatever the match situation. He'd been dropped from Pakistan's side recently, but thanks to the odd injury, he's been given an opportunity. We dearly hope that he makes it to the World Cup. It would be a poorer tournament for his absence.

He aided his cause with 3-25 as well, as South Africa were all out for 210.

Our Shahid Afridi shame

An anonymous comment:

"FYI, somewhere while you were taking the mickey from Key, you missed Afridi going batshit crazy against SL in the 1st ODI."

We did as well.

Shahid Afridi hit 73 off - count 'em - 34 balls. Malinga Bandara had a particularly poor time, going for 32 off one over. In the words of Osman Samiuddin at Cricinfo:

"Between the straight boundary and point, Afridi scythed, drove, slapped and miscued two fours and four successive sixes, in the process bringing up his fifty off 22 balls."

That was only Afridi's sixth quickest fifty. Normal standards don't really apply.

We apologise for our almost wilful neglect in missing this news. As penance, we'll be skipping our 11.30am cup of tea.

However, we would like to take issue with the idea that we were taking the mickey out of Rob Key. We weren't. We were lauding him. Later today, we're going to laud him once again by publishing another beautiful picture.

Photo of Shahid Afridi successfully defending one of his stumps

Looks like the middle one's intact. Well played, Shahid.

One Shahid Afridi six

That's all we got out of him during this World Cup. He took three wickets as well, but liking Shahid Afridi for his wicket-taking is like liking a roast dinner for the carrots. It's a component, but it's not what draws you in.

To try and imagine what it would have been like if Pakistan had progressed into the Super 8s, why not watch this video of Shahid Afridi hitting a six over-and-over again and intersperse it with occasional viewings of the picture on the right. That's a fair representation, we think.

We now have only eight World Cup players to watch.

Shahid Afridi, Pakistan - World Cup player to watch

We were going to go for Mohammad Asif, but he's injured. Then we thought about it for a minute and thought: 'Hang on. If Shahid Afridi isn't one to watch, who in this solar system actually is?'.

Because while there's no guarantee of success, you can be 100% certain that you'll see SOMETHING. It might be the fastest ever one-day international hundred; it might be a single ludicrous six and then missing a straight one; it might be dancing on the pitch in his spikes while there's a bomb scare elsewhere in the ground; or it might just be skying his first delivery with an undignified heave. It's sure to be something though.

For his continuing battle against reason and common sense, we salute Shahid Afridi.

Other players to watch during the World Cup

Shahid Afridi helps Pakistan win Twenty20 match

We feel that we should at least comment on Pakistan's victory in the Twenty20. Mike Yardy had a decent international debut, hitting 24 not out off 14 balls and taking 1-20, but the most newsworthy contribution as far as King Cricket's concerned was from Shahid Afridi: 28 off 10 balls.

We were going to write lots of 'ooh, imagine Shahid Afridi playing Twenty20' sorts of things, but then we realised that this actually conflicts with the reason why we love Shahid Afridi. The genius of Shahid Afridi is in his complete disregard for the match situation. He's not going to bat any differently for Twenty20. He's the one player in the world whose run-rate will probably end up much the same in Twenty20 as it will in Test cricket. In reality, Twenty20 is the worst place to watch him bat because everyone else is doing much the same thing. In Test cricket he's a man alone.

We have a cat called Afridi. Here he is:


Unfortunately, our hopes of his being the first non-human to play for England were dealt a bitter blow by his revelation that he doesn't have opposable thumbs. This means that he can't even grip a cricket bat, let alone play a cover drive.

His development as a leg-spinner is being hampered by his tendency to look bemused and then wander off during training. Also, given the choice between standing in the sink and performing fielding drills, Afridi inevitably opts for standing in the sink.

Afridi promoted to nine in King Cricket top ten.

I think we should all spare a thought for Rahul Dravid.

You start a new job and the previous incumbent is still hanging around with a surly look on his face. Not only that, you have to tell him what to do and he won’t pull his weight. You actually want him replaced, but your bosses won’t let you get rid of him.

You’re captaining your nation in what is just about the most important sporting event on earth. Things are going badly. Your opponents, Pakistan, are building a truly monumental total at a rate of knots. You get a wicket. You should be happy. Shahid Afridi comes out to bat.

Would there be any less welcoming sight? Your side are haemorrhaging runs. Shahid Afridi is coming out to bat. Your best hope of salvaging something from the match is to slow Pakistan’s scoring rate. Shahid Afridi is coming out to bat. Shahid Afridi is coming out to bat and people are telling him to score some quick runs. There is hardly ever an occasion where you need to instruct Shahid Afridi to score quick runs.

Spare a thought for Harbhajan Singh. Six. Six. Six. Six. Two. One. Twenty-seven runs off the over. The only man to ever score more runs off a Test over is King Cricket himself, Brian Lara. The only reason that you haven’t gone for more than twenty-seven runs is because the batsman took a single off the last ball so that he could have a second attempt at hitting every ball of the over for six.

Here are the bare facts: 103 runs off 80 ball with seven fours and seven sixes.

Apologies to Steve Harmison, but Shahid Afridi is up to number nine in the King Cricket top ten.

Disaster narrowly averted

While we were researching Matthew Hoggard's 'Holy Crap' entry, below, we made a HORRIFYING DISCOVERY.

Here are the top two players by Test match batting strike rate:

A C Gilchrist, 82.14
Shahid Afridi, 80.22

He's second. Afridi's second. Shahid Afridi is defined by scoring runs quickly all of the time. How can this be?

Fortunately, we then found this, which made us feel better. This is the same statistic but for one-day internationals:

Shahid Afridi, 108.36
I D S Smith, 99.43
V Sehwag, 97.64
R L Powell, 96.66
A C Gilchrist, 95.57

Take that everyone who's ever played cricket. Shahid Afridi scores near enough thirteen runs per hundred balls more than Adam Gilchrist.

The runner-up there, incidentally, is former New Zealand keeper Ian Smith who only ever scored three fifties.

Shahid Afridi holds the record for the fastest one-day hundred, which he scored off 37 balls on his debut. On his DEBUT. He was sixteen in Pakistani years at the time. Pakistani years are the same length as everyone else's but some don't count towards your age.

Adam Gilchrist's fastest one-day hundred was off 73 balls.

As Geoff Boycott might say if his family weren't genetically predisposed to slow scoring: "73 balls? 73 balls? My mum could score a ton faster than that one-handed, with her eyes closed, using a fish instead of a bat - even if the boundaries were set really, really far back."

Loser.

King Cricket Top Ten

Well, as you can see, this list doesn’t follow the official rankings.

All-rounders barely feature. This is a list that only takes into account the exceptional, so being a decent batsman and bowler won’t help you. You must excel. As for the absence of South Africans – their best two players are Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis, both of whom use the method of boring the opposition into submission.

Shahid Afridi’s probably the biggest surprise. We haven’t even loaded anything onto this blog yet and we’re already worried that it’s eventually going to boil down to a series of entries saying: “Afridi scored 42 off 17 balls today. We love Shahid Afridi.”

10 - Shahid Afridi

We toyed with making him King Cricket, because we love him more than the biggest Transformer in the world, but he’s not actually that good in any traditional sense.

Shahid Afridi coming out to bat in a dull game is like fancying a ham sandwich and then getting a knock on the door from the hog roast man and he’s giving away free hog (and baguettes).

Never has anyone played with such palpable disregard for his own wicket or the match situation. The best part is: he does it EVERY SINGLE TIME.

He also bowls leg-spin at about the same speed as so-called “fast bowlers” such as Glenn McGrath and Shaun Pollock.