Pakistan's premier speedster Shaheen Shah Afridi opened up about his heated verbal exchange with young batter Matthew Breetzke during the ODI tri-nation series match between Pakistan and South Africa. The incident happened during the 28th over of the first innings when Shaheen got in the way of batter Matthew Breetzke, who ran for a single. Shaheen's action caused inappropriate physical contact, which led to a heated argument.
The star speedster admitted that he was teasing the South African batter in an attempt to unsettle Breetzke and pick his wicket. He also said that the tension was confined to the field as both players met and shook hands after the match.
"For the first time, Matthew didn't say anything. I kept teasing him to get a wicket. Whatever happened on the field stayed there. Matthew and I met, shook hands, and became good friends," Shaheen said during an interview as quoted from Geo News.
For this incident, Shaheen was slapped with a fine of 25 per cent of his match fee. He was found to have breached Article 2.12 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to "inappropriate physical contact with a Player, Player Support Personnel, Umpire, Match Referee or any other person (including a spectator) during an International Match."
Shaheen also spoke about Pakistan's ongoing bowling struggles in the death overs of an inning recently exposed in the ongoing tri-nation series.
In their tri-nation series opener clash against New Zealand, Shaheen and Naseem Shah bowled the death overs where Glenn Phillips went all guns blazing and hammered Pakistan's ace guns to walk away 71 runs in the last four overs.
The same thing happened during their next clash against South Africa where Naseem, Mohammad Hasnain, and Khushdil Shah bowled the last four overs. The bowling trio conceded 46 runs, which lifted South Africa to a mammoth total of 352/5.