Shaheen Afridi, Pakistan’s new T20I captain, said that Pakistan were surprised with the speed guns during the recent Test series in Australia.
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Pakistan, who are currently in New Zealand for a five-match T20I series, suffered a whitewash in Australia recently, losing all three Tests comprehensively.
Plagued with injuries, Pakistan struggled to put up a first-choice bowling attack throughout the series. Abrar Ahmed, their first-choice Test spinner, missed all three games. Naseem Shah, one of the leaders of their bowling attack, didn’t travel to Australia, while Afridi himself was rested for the third Test in Sydney to keep a check on his workload.
Mid-way through the series, there were concerns regarding Afridi’s fitness as the speed guns showed him and the other Pakistani seamers bowling in the early to mid-130s. Waqar Younis suggested that Afridi should take some time off from the game else he runs the risk of becoming a medium pacer.
“If he’s not fit, if he’s got some issues, I think he needs to go away from the game and fix that. If you’re just going to carry on like that, then you are going to become a medium pacer. He used to bowl 145, 150 [kph] all days and bowl really quickly and swing that ball. What I’m seeing right now, yeah there’s a little bit of swing there, but his pace is way down,” Younis told ESPNCricinfobefore the second Test in Melbourne.
In the pre-match press conference before the first T20I against New Zealand, Afridi spoke about how they surprised at the speed guns in Australia.
“To be honest, when we were bowling, we were watching the board [big screen] ourselves,” Afridi said. “‘Are we really this [slow]?’ We couldn’t understand. We had been bowling since the start, putting in so much effort, yet the speeds were coming up to 132-133 [kph].
“We were surprised and were thinking ‘Has it been decided [by the broadcasters] that the speed gun won’t go above this?'”
Afridi ended the series with eight wickets from two games at an average of 41.62. The highest wicket-taker for Pakistan was Aamer Jamal, who made his debut in the series and picked 18 wickets from three games at 20.44.
Pakistan’s first T20I against New Zealand will be played on January 12 at Auckland.
