Shaheen Shah Afridi: “Seeing 130-132 kph was disheartening and we thought this was pre-decided that we won’t go above 130 kph”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Pakistan T20I captain Shaheen Shah Afridi has admitted that he was disheartened to see himself and the other fast bowlers only managing to hit speeds of around 130 kph during the recent three-Test series against Australia.
The bowling speed of the Pakistan pace attack was a major talking point during the series, with many pundits questioning why there was such a drastic drop.
Afridi admitted he doesn’t know the reason for the decrease in pace, but alluded to it being “pre-decided.”
“To be honest, we were ourselves looking at the speed o’ meters and wondering, is this really us? Because we were unable to understand that despite putting in all the effort, the speeds were not going up. Seeing 130-132 kph was disheartening and we thought this was pre-decided that we won’t go above 130 kph,” he was quoted as saying by NDTV.
In the Test series against Australia, Afridi took eight wickets in two games at an average of 41.62.
The 23-year-old then proceeded to lead Pakistan in their five-match T20I series against New Zealand and claimed nine wickets at an average of 19.22 and an economy rate of 8.94.
Next up for Afridi will be the 2024 Pakistan Super League (PSL), where he will captain the Lahore Qalandars.
PSL 9 will be played from February 17 to March 18 in four cities – Lahore, Multan, Karachi and Rawalpindi.
Lahore Qalandars Squad for PSL 9: Shaheen Shah Afridi (captain), Haris Rauf, David Wiese, Sikandar Raza, Abdullah Shafique, Zaman Khan, Mirza Tahir Baig, Rashid Khan (reserved), Fakhar Zaman, Rassie van der Dussen, Sahibzada Farhan, Muhammad Imran Jnr., Ahsan Hafeez Bhatti, Dan Lawrence (partially available), Jahandad Khan, Syed Faridoun Mahmood, Shai Hope, Kamran Ghulam, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Tayyab Abbas
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