Shaheen Shah Afridi-led attack claims all 10 wickets as arch-rivals bowl out India for 266 in 48.5 overs before game gets called off due to rain at Kandy
Shaheen Shah Afridi (centre) celebrates the wicket of India’s Virat Kohli at Pallekele, Kandy, on Saturday. Pic/AFP
In the lead-up to the Asia Cup, the Pakistani pace attack was the cynosure of all eyes. There was Shaheen Shah Afridi, the tall left-armer who is a wonderful exponent of swing bowling, his ability to swing the ball into the right-hander at pace making him a particularly dangerous proposition. There was Naseem Shah, slightly round-armish and therefore a skiddy proposition who could make the ball swing prodigiously. And then there was Haris Rauf, the quickest of the lot with a mean bouncer and a searing yorker.
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Sensational Shaheen
Their glamour quotient was on full view at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on a frustratingly stop-start Saturday. The match was finally called off at 9:50 pm local time due to rain. Afridi was sensational with the new ball and Naseem bowled superbly without commensurate success until late in the innings; Rauf was a touch off-colour but was still good enough to hustle the Indians and was rewarded with three wickets. Between them, the trio accounted for all 10 Indian wickets, only the second time in ODI history that Pakistan’s quicks had dismissed all 10 Indian batsmen (the first was at the Champions Trophy in Birmingham in 2004) as Rohit Sharma & Co were bowled out for 266 in 48.5 overs.
Skipper Rohit, Virat go early
Afridi’s propensity to duck the new ball into right-handed Indian openers was best illustrated in the T20 World Cup game in Dubai in 2021 when he cleaned up KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma in his first two overs. On this occasion, after the first of many rain breaks, he set up India’s captain with two successive outswingers before bringing the third back in and sneaking it through the gate to rattle off-peg. It was a peach of a delivery, leaving his hand exactly the way he wanted it to and coming in at the batsman on his bidding. For good measure, he dismissed Virat Kohli too, though there was a touch of fortune involved as the batsman played away from his body and got an inside-edge on to his stumps through his pads, before coming on late in the innings to dismiss Hardik Pandya with an off-cutter. Talk about versatility.
Naseem beat the bat repeatedly in his first spell but seldom lost poise, sticking to his guns and finally tasting success for patience and perseverance for all the pressure he had put on the batsmen in tandem with Afridi. There was a slight slackening of the stranglehold when Rauf was introduced, and he too was a bit lucky that Shreyas Iyer smashed a rasping pull straight to the mid-wicket fielder, but apart from the phase when Ishan Kishan and Pandya teed off, India were never in the comfort zone. One of the great attributes of this triumvirate is that it can take the pitch out of the equation, a wonderful asset to have especially in the sub-continent. With the World Cup in India in October-November, Pakistan thus have every reason to believe they are in with a serious shot at glory.
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