Former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis has raised concerns over the fitness of star pacer Shaheen Afridi amid his slow start in the World Cup in India. In Pakistan’s first two games so far, Shaheen has picked up just two wickets, conceding 103 runs in the process. The legendary pacer pointed out how Pakistan’s success depends on Shaheen’s ability to consistently grab early wickets, adding that the management needs to figure out the reason behind his struggles.
“Pakistan’s success has come when Shaheen really picks up early wickets and over the years, he’s done it many times and, uh, and he’s got capacity, capability, but at the moment he’s trying too hard. He’s just falling all over the place, you know, bowling on the pads, outside the off stump he’s tried around the wicket over the wicket, nothing really worked for him, and I’m sure he will even sit back with Morne Morkel,” Waqar said on Star Sports.
With Pakistan set to square off with India on October 14 (Saturday), Waqar feels the team would need Shaheen’s services against Rohit Sharma and his men.
“And they’ll probably work out what is going wrong. I think there might be, uh, some action problem. What if he’s carrying any niggle or anything? If he can fix this issue and with that left arm ball coming in, you know, early doors, You know, against India, we’ll be needing his services at the most because he has done it, uh, against India a few matches previously,” he added.
So far, Pakistan have won two games out of two, and pulled off the biggest World Cup chase in their last match against Sri Lanka.
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