Renowned cricket pundit and former India cricketer, Ravi Shastri launched a blistering attack on Pakistan's superstar fast bowler Shaheen Afridi when Indian batters toyed with him at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on October 14 (Saturday) in the ODI World Cup fixture. Shastri didn't mince his words and urged everyone to stop hyping the Pakistani pacer because he is not great and he is not Wasim Akram.
"He is a good bowler, he can claim a wicket with the new ball. But you have to admit it, if Naseem Shah is not playing and the quality of Pakistan’s spin bowling is like this, then Shaheen Shah Afridi koi Wasim Akram nai hai! Acche bowler hai. Lekin itna bhi jyaada chadane ka koi zaroorat nahi hai. Jab hai theek thak, toh bolna chahiye woh theek thaak hai. Chadha ke nahin bithana chahiye ki bohot zabardast hai. Yeh nahi hai! Yeh maan na padega. (Shaheen is not Wasim Akram. He’s a good bowler, but there is no need for us to hype him so highly as well. If a player is simply a good player, we should restrict our praise to saying he is a good player. He’s not a great player, we need to admit that)," said Shastri while doing Hindi commentary on Star Sports.
In three matches played in the 2023 ODI World Cup so far, Shaheen Afridi has looked like a pale shadow of himself, and against India on Saturday, the left-arm pacer failed to make any impact once again. He did dismiss Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma but failed to build any sort of pressure on the Indian batters.
In the first ball of the Indian innings, Rohit clipped Shaheen's delivery for a boundary, and later, in the same over Gill also got off the mark with a four. Overall, Shaheen bagged two wickets in six overs and conceded 36 runs against India.
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