In what was a huge boost to the confidence of the Pakistan cricket team ahead of the T20 World Cup 2022, their ace pacer Shaheen Afridi was declared fully fit having recovered completely from his knee surgery.
Pakistan will play their T20 World Cup 2022 opening match against rivals India on October 23 at the MCG ground and will hope for a redo of their match from the previous year’s tournament, when Babar Azam and co. defeated India by 10 wickets, their first win over the Men in Blue in World Cups after 12 consecutive losses.
India batters have not faced Shaheen for over a year as the fast bowler missed the Asia Cup owing to a knee injury. He had removed Rohit Sharma, and KL Rahul early in the T20 World Cup 2021 encounter to hurt India badly and then took the wicket of Virat Kohli to restrict India to just 151/7.
Then Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam hit half-centuries to help Pakistan win by 10 wickets.
Talking on Star Sports show 'Game Plan', former India opener Gautam Gambhir advised Indian batters on how to tackle the Shaheen Afridi problem and told them to score runs off him instead of just surviving.
He said: "When it comes to Shaheen Afridi, don’t look to survive. Look to score runs from him. Because the moment you look to survive, everything becomes really small. Whether it’s your back lift, whether it’s your footwork, and obviously, in T20 cricket you can’t look to survive. I know that he can be dangerous with the new ball, but again, irrespective, the Indian batters need to score more runs, get into better positions, and look to time the balls rather than to hit it. India will be fine because India has got the quality in their top 3 or 4 who can definitely take on Shaheen Shah Afridi."
Shaheen Afridi did his rehab at the Crystal Palace football club in the UK after his knee injury and has claimed full fitness. He will fly to Australia to join the Pakistan squad, who will play two warmup matches ahead of their India clash.
