With his aggressive approach to batting and his penchant for hitting sixes, they
said his game would be ideally suited to the Twenty20 format and true to form,
Shahid Afridi has not disappointed as he sits on top of the Player of the
Tournament ladder at the World Championship.
But the 27-year-old Pakistan all-rounder has been impressing the crowds
in South Africa more for his performances with the ball than with bat in
hand.
His tricky brand of leg-spin has proved very successful so
far and he is currently the second-leading wicket-taker in the tournament with
11 scalps. He is enjoying a remarkable average of 12.18 and his economy rate
in the competition is 6.70, very useful for Twenty20 cricket.
With the bat, Afridi has not put together any big innings yet
but the 85 runs he has scored in the tournament so far have come at an express
pace his strike-rate is 212.50 runs per 100 balls faced.
Afridi is currently on seven points in the Player of the Tournament
log, just one ahead of a group of three players that includes Australias Stuart
Clark, Morne Morkel of South Africa and Sanath Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka, although
with the other two teams already knocked out, only leading wicket-taker Clark
can displace Afridi at the top.
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