Shahid Afridi: “I don’t know why foolish Asif Ali tried to take a single. He should have smacked the bowler straight down the ground”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi called power-hitter Asif Ali “foolish” for not leading the team to victory against India.
The match Afridi was referring to took place in this year’s Asia Cup when the men in green beat their arch-rivals by five wickets with one ball to spare.
Prior to Iftikhar Ahmed hitting the winning runs, Asif was trapped lbw off the bowling of Arshdeep Singh for 16.
Afridi was fuming that Iftikhar even had to come in and noted that if Asif’s job is to win matches, he should have done that in the match.
“The situation should not have come down to Iftikhar [Ahmed]. I don’t know why foolish Asif Ali tried to take a single. He should have smacked the bowler straight down the ground,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
Recently, Asif featured in one match in the T20 World Cup, which was against India. He scored two runs in the nail-biting encounter, which the men in blue won off the last ball.
Pakistan lost their next match against Zimbabwe as well, but bounced back to defeat Netherlands, South Africa and Bangladesh before taking down New Zealand in the semi-finals.
In the final, however, they lost to England by five wickets.
Their next assignment will be a three-Test series against England, which will be played in Pakistan in December.
Afridi cant talk, he did worse when his country needed him most.