Younis Ahmed: “Shaheen Shah Afridi now has the same role that Wasim and Waqar Younis had in the past”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan batsman Younis Ahmed said left-arm seamer Shaheen Shah Afridi now holds the same role Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis held back in the day.
Wasim and Waqar formed one of the most dangerous fast bowling partnerships in cricket history and regularly took wickets early for Pakistan. They were also renowned for troubling the opposition batsmen with their swing, yorkers and other variations.
Since Afridi is the pace leader now, Younis said he has to do the same and make early inroads to give the men in green the upper hand right from the get-go.
“Shaheen Shah Afridi now has the same role that Wasim and Waqar Younis had in the past,” he told Cricket Pakistan.
Afridi will be returning during the 2022 T20 World Cup after spending some time on the sidelines with a right knee ligament injury.
The issue caused him to miss the Asia Cup, seven-match T20 series against England and the T20 tri-series against New Zealand and Bangladesh.
Pakistan will kickstart their T20 World Cup campaign against arch-rivals India on October 23 in Melbourne.
Pakistan’s 2022 T20 World Cup squad: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Shan Masood
Reserves: Mohammad Haris, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir