Widely regarded as two of the best bowlers in the world of cricket, Jasprit Bumrah and Shaheen Afridi are battling injuries lately and they have been out of action for a while now.
While Bumrah is struggling with a recurring back injury, knee problem has kept Shaheen out of competitive cricket. With some marquee series and tournaments scheduled in 2023, the fans of India and Pakistan would hope that their respective pace spearhead regains complete fitness as soon as possible.
Jasprit Bumrah picked up a stress fracture on his lower back prior to the Asia Cup last year. On his return in the home T20Is against Australia, Bumrah went down again with the same injury, which ruled him out of the T20 World Cup 2022 and he is yet to regain full fitness.
On the other hand, Afridi's knee issues kept him out of the Asia Cup 2022. While the left-arm pacer made a comeback during the T20 World Cup in Australia, he once again hurt his already injured knee during the final against England, which forced him to miss the rest of the season.
Every now and then, the two fast bowlers are compared by the fans and cricket experts and former Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq is the latest to draw parallels between Bumrah and Shaheen.
According to Razzaq, Bumrah doesn’t even come close to Shaheen’s level.
"Shaheen Afridi is way better than Jasprit Bumrah. Bumrah is nowhere close to Shaheen's level," he told a local news channel on the sidelines of an event.
This is not the first time Abdul Razzaq has grabbed the headlines with his controversial statement. In December 2019, he had called Jasprit Bumrah a ‘baby bowler’ while also stating that he would have no issues in dealing with the Indian pacer.
“After having faced world class bowlers in my time, I would have had no problem against a bowler like Bumrah. Pressure would have been on him. I have played against great bowlers like Glenn McGrath and Wasim Akram, so Bumrah is a baby bowler in front of me and I could have easily dominated and attacked him,” Razzaq had said while speaking to Cricket Pakistan.
