Shahid Afridi

A pure allrounder of all sorts Shahid Afridi, who is fondly called ‘Boom Boom Afridi’,  was a murderer of the cricket ball, while his quick leg-break bowling was unparalleled too. 

Afridi served his nation for twenty-two long years where he donned the Pakistani colours in 27 Tests, 398 ODIs, and 99 T20Is to score a mammoth of 11,196 international runs and bag 541 wickets, apart from smoking the world-record of 479 sixes.

Hailing from Peshawar, a 16-year-old Pathan debuted for Pakistan, in Nairobi, in 1996 and showcased his class in his only second ODI where he stunned Sri Lanka by smacking the then fastest century off just 37 deliveries. In the next match, he spun the Proteas by grabbing three wickets. Two years later, Afridi was introduced in the longest format as well, and the allrounder started his Test career with a five-wicket haul against the touring Australians. A few months later, he toured India where he performed well and his country clinched a famous win. 

Afridi started to win matches with his all-round show. However, inconsistency was numero-uno on his portfolio. Therefore, in 2006, just after playing 26 Test matches, the allrounder decided to retire from the longest format. He came back out of his Test retirement in 2010 to play one last Test at the Lord’s. 

According to him, the allrounder was best-suited for the shortest format and it wasn’t untrue. In the inaugural World T20 in 2007, Afridi was the main man for runners up Pakistan. 

In the 2009 T20 World Cup, he scored half-centuries in both the semi-final and the final as Pakistan won their first World Cup, after 1992. The following year saw Afridi getting caught in the Ball Tampering scandal in Australia that banned him from two T20I matches. Later in the season, he was handed the helm of the national team in the ODI format, which became one of the highest points in Afridi’s career. The allrounder took his team to the semi-final of the 50-over WC, before they were knocked out by the eventual champions, India. Though the spinner emerged as the joint highest wicket-taker along with Zaheer Khan. 

Although, controversies and Afridi’s career went hand in hand. Post the World Cup, on the tour of the West Indies, following a rift with the then coach Waqar Younis, Afridi decided to bid a goodbye to international cricket and to play for Hampshire in England. Pakistan Cricket Board went out of their way to get their superstar player, hence, Afridi withdrew his conditional retirement in late 2011. By 2014, a matured and a bit more inconsistent Afridi started calling himself a leg-spinner and started batting in the lower-middle order. 

At the fag-end of his international career, Afridi took command of the Pakistan team and led them during the 2015 World Cup and the T20 World Cup of 2016. After a below-par World T20, the national selectors dropped Boom Boom and the player announced his final goodbye in February 2017. ICC honoured the Pakistani by naming him in the Rest of World XI team to take on West Indies for the one-off T20I, played at Lord’s in 2018. Afridi, now a retired international cricketer has become a crowd-puller for the leagues such as Lanka Premier League, Abu T10 League, NatWest T20 Blast, and most importantly, Pakistan Super League. 

(As of May 2021)