As a young boy in a family of seven cricket-mad brothers, Pakistan pace bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi immersed himself in the sport \u2013 even when sleeping. \u201cI used to come home after training and he would take my pads and somehow wear them to bed,\u201d said elder brother Riaz, a decent player himself with one Test cap to his name. \u201cHe would place the stumps next to his pillow and dream of playing,\u201d he told an international news agency. Pakistan\u2019s hopes of winning the World Cup in India will rely heavily on the lanky 23-year-old Shaheen turning those dreams into reality. The team was recently deposed as the world\u2019s top-ranked ODI side by India, and a less-than-stellar performance in the recent rain-hit Asia Cup won by their bitter cross-border rivals has some fans questioning the side\u2019s commitment and ability. Nobody can doubt Shaheen\u2019s devotion to the sport, however. Hailing from Landi Kotal \u2013 a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province \u2013 Shaheen dedicated himself to cricket as soon as he could hold a bat. \u201cHis commitment to playing was matched only by his dedication to watching matches,\u201d Riaz said. \u201cHis mood would sour if Pakistan lost a match, and things would only return to normal when Pakistan won, or if he performed well himself on the field.\u201d He is now one of the most feared opening bowlers in any form of the game. \u201cIn my early days, I used to throw the ball in school games instead of bowling it,\u201d Shaheen recalled. \u201cRiaz bhai taught me to bowl properly, and encouraged me to bowl fast.\u201d Explosive debut An early breakthrough came in 2015 when he attended a trial to join a regional Under-15 team. His towering height and rapid action caught the selectors\u2019 attention, and it took just two deliveries for them to recognize his talent. \u201cI bowled two deliveries right on target, they gave their approval,\u201d Shaheen recalls. He went on to be the most successful bowler in the championship, claiming 12 wickets, and earned a spot on the Pakistan Under-16 team for a tour to Australia in 2016. During one of these matches, former Australian captain Steve Waugh \u2013 there to watch his son in action \u2013 predicted Shaheen would be a future star. Shaheen joined Khan Research Laboratories \u2013 the entity which runs Pakistan\u2019s nuclear program and also fields a First Class cricket side \u2013 making an immediate impact. On his debut in 2017 he took eight wickets for 39 runs against a formidable Rawalpindi team \u2013 still the best First Class debut performance by a bowler in Pakistan. \u201cI was thrilled to witness his natural talent,\u201d said Aqib Javed who played 22 Tests and 163 ODIs for Pakistan and became one of Shaheen\u2019s mentors. \u201cHis flawless action, unwavering commitment, and innate ability to swing the ball were truly exceptional.\u201d Shaheen, standing an impressive 1.98 metres (six feet, six inches) continued to improve every year, culminating in his inclusion in Pakistan\u2019s Twenty20 side in 2018. He impressed with his pace in the 2019 World Cup in England, taking 16 wickets in five matches \u2013 including tournament-best figures of 6-35 against Bangladesh at Lord\u2019s. Now established as the country\u2019s most dominant bowler, in the 2021 Twenty20 World Cup in Dubai he destroyed India\u2019s top order of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli with figures of 3-31 as Pakistan recorded their first and only win to date in a World Cup match against their arch-rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a young boy in a family of seven cricket-mad brothers, Pakistan pace bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi immersed himself in the sport \u2013 even when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9991,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}