The mystery of Shahid Afridi.

[Lurker]

Exactly! That´s where I got the feeling that he doesn´t hold any future because he went only Baseball style' date=' and such guys usually don´t play for their teams.[/quote'] But that would be one of those records that will perhaps the test of time Rawal. If it was easy to do such baseball hitting others would have done it too. Forget LOI, even in 20/20 players fail to score a 100 and Afridi did so way back. The man has his plus points no denying that. Just that these days his plus points seem to be lot lot less than his minus ones. xx

[MundaPakistani]

Exactly! That´s where I got the feeling that he doesn´t hold any future because he went only Baseball style' date= and such guys usually don´t play for their teams.

Other can do that' date=' too, but they play for their team. If any player gets as much backings as much he gets then anybody can do it. Pakistan players never think that he can win them a match when he comes out to bat. [b']They take him to be a bonus if performs.

and that's how it should be...in ODIs he should be seen as a bowler who can bat.

well it was anything but that, may i ask if you have seen that innings of his?

[MundaPakistani]

Dear' date=' I have downloaded that Innings on my computer.[/quote'] Ok then tell me where you see baseball style hitting? In fact i vividly remember the commentator saying that this isn't slogging these are some excellent cricket shots.

Exactly, but only if he could at least bowl like Daniel Vettori and bat as well. Otherwise there are 1000s of examplary players who are good bowling all-rounder but won´t mention because they posses some bowling and batting skills but he posses only Baseball batting skills and stone throwing bowling skills.

As i said that in the last 4 or 5 years he has been on par with the likes of H Singh and Vettori with the ball. From the batting point of view he has underachieved but even then he has single handedly won a few games for PAK.

[Predator_05]

Afridi tries to play a big shot for almost every ball he faces. That for me, is slogging. Technique or the quality of strokeplay is immaterial.

[MundaPakistani]

The commentator must be Rameez Raja' date= right? Who sometimes likes to compare Mohammad Yousuf with Sachin Tendulkar:giggle:. But, do you really believe in what commentators say? When I read your post I immediately went to see that Innings if it can have an effect on me but it didn´t. I got the same feeling again, and that of Baseball style hitting..

-Nope. - Ok i guess then we will have to agree to disagree.

I´m not talking about last 4 or 5 years but the entire career, my dear. And if you say he has won Pakistan few games, don´t you know the fact he has almost played 250 ODI matches? Only 'few' are not good enough. In 240 matches he has only won one Man-of-the-Series and 16 Man-of-the-Match awards. Being an all-rounder and after playing so many matches, it´s too less. If they include me in their side and grant me a permanent place for, around, 250 matches then even I will help Pakistan win a 'few' matches.

Aray bhaiwhy are you going by the man of the match awards? One of my fav cricketers and a heading ODI all rounder of the 90s C Cairns only won 10 man of the match awards in his 215 matchesr now does that Afridi is a better all rounder? I agree with the part that in the 1st half of his career he should not have been seen as a batting all rounder because as an opener he only managed to average 25 @108 so i am glad that in the last 4 or 5 years they have started to use him as a bowling all rounder and the results have improved immensely.

[MundaPakistani]

Arre Bhaiya' date=' Chris Cairns (my favourit, too) had only 10 awards because New Zealand rarely won a match those days and if they did it was only due to him. And, at least he has won New Zealand an 'ICC Champions Trophy (2000)'. It was a very weak team.[/quote'] Sorry Rawal but that's simply not true. During C Cairns career NZ won 100 ODIs and lost 103, so calling them as a "very weak team that rarely won a match" is simply not correct.

[The Outsider]

Sorry Rawal but that's simply not true. During C Cairns career NZ won 100 ODIs and lost 103, so calling them as a "very weak team that rarely won a match" is simply not correct.

Don't think that's a fair way to assess things. A better way would be to see the W/L ratio of NZ in matches where Cairns did not play/was injured during his playing tenure. That would show the importance of him to the team.

[MundaPakistani]

Don't think that's a fair way to assess things. A better way would be to see the W/L ratio of NZ in matches where Cairns did not play/was injured during his playing tenure. That would show the importance of him to the team.

I am not doubting the importance of C Cairns, he was their best player so off course he was important to them. The W/L ratio was just to prove that during Cairns's tenure NZ were not a "very weak" team.

[The Outsider]

I am not doubting the importance of C Cairns' date=' he was their best player so off course he was important to them. The W/L ratio was just to prove that during Cairns's tenure NZ were not a "very weak" team.[/quote'] I agree, I was just trying to bring forth the argument that the good W/L ratio of NZ while Cairns was playing was a result of him playing and peforming in the first place.

[MundaPakistani]

Rival you will find that almost all players have about 20% of their wins against the weak team like BAN, ZIM(who BTW weren't minnows in the 90s), Canada etc e.g SL have won 213 games when Jayasuria has been the part of the team and out of the 213 47 have come against the 'weak' teams so that comes out to about 21%(same as Cairns). Secondly coming back to the man of the match debate even if we look at the games won during Cairns's tenure(100) the percentage of the MOM awards comes out to be exactly 10%. Afridi on the other hand has 16 awards out of 139 games won and his percentage comes out to about 11.4 so either way Afridi wins. There are many other great players like Rahul, Murali, Bevan etc who have very few man of the match awards.

[remorajj24]

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[Gambit]

hi my name is ravi plz sendmy mailhow to see live match where clik options i dont iam see match in indian cricket fans.com

??

[Guest dada_rocks]

Yes he is bonafide lathait; sane people start thinking about team and don't throw kitchen sink at every ball ..

[MundaPakistani]

Well, I made a point of MOM because if you call Afridi a real match winner who isn´t consistent with his performances then those number of MOM needs to be much higher than this. You see, Jayasuriya is a inconsistent player but the other fact of him is that the day he plays Sri Lanka (like Afridi) and Jayasuriya does have 45 MOM awards which shows how many matches he has won for Sri Lanka (unlike Afridi). Guys like Cairns are who may not win you too many matches, and therefore MOM awards, but they will contribute in every win and are consistent. If you are a match-winner but inconsistent you need to win more matches if not back-to-back ones but number should be better than those of Afridi.

You seem to be drifting in to different direction again, let me give you another example so we can end this debate. Waqar Younis IMO was a far bigger match winner than Afridi yet he only won 17 MOM awards in 262 games even the great Murali only has 10 MOM awards in 297 games and i can guarantee that he has won more than 10 games for SL. So in short i respect your opinion about Afridi but your reasoning is flawed.

[MundaPakistani]

Look' date=' [b']what if people like Waqar and Murlitharan haven´t got too many MOM, they at least have a record which speaks for themselves. Afridi has got neither of it. And players like them perform and put contributions in every game anyway. And yes, both of them could perform only one way, and that is bowling. But you all call Afridi an all-rounder.

Yes that's exactly the point! If 1000 people were asked a question on who is bigger match winner Murali or Vaas? I can assure you 999 will say Murali (because the 1000th person will be an American:giggle: ) yet you will find that C Vaas has won more MOM awards. If Afridi gives me a 50 of 30 balls and then Anwar goes on to score a century or Wasim/Waqar goes on to pick a 4 forthen it's quite likely that Anwar will be the MOM award but to me all 3 of them did the job. A real example of such a scenrio was in the recent ODI between SA and PAK where Afridi scored a 60 odd of 30 odd balls but YK went to win the MOM award.

[MundaPakistani]

But I' date=' however, [b']deny the point that Murali is better than Vaas in ODIs at least. Vaas performs Sri Lanka wins because he gets the top order.

:confused_smile: Quite strange.