Bringing an end to AFRIDI debate.

Pakistan cricket fans are divided into three categories.

1. Who have cricketing knowledge and love cricket. 2. Who have cricketing knowledge and love Afridi. 3. Who just love Afridi.

First of all, lets be clear. He has been my favorite player for a very long time and is perhaps the biggest super star after Imran Khan and Wasim Akram. But he is not more important than Pakistan Cricket Team.

Anyone who belongs to the first two categories will know Shahid Afridi does not deserve a place in the team and he was only selected in the T20 side because he is Shahid Afridi.


Shahid Afridi is a Pakistani player just like anyone else. If Younis Khan can be dropped from the ODI side for just a couple of bad performances, If Misbah ul Haq can be dropped from the T20 and strip off the captaincy for no apparent reason or maybe for playing 'slow' against England. If Aizaz Cheema can be dropped after winning us the Asia Cup then Afridi can be dropped over poor performances for the past one year.

People will argue he was leading the side well and should still be captain, people will argue he was a threat to India, people will argue why a specific person was selected and not Afridi, people will have a thousand reasons to place him in the team. Some will argue Misbah or Hafeez didn't want him in the team. But lets be logical Shahid Afridi was not performing and got more chances than anyone else.

People, like Shahid Afridi are confused about the role he has in the team. Is he an all rounder, or a bowler who can bat. In both the cases he has just not been good enough.

In the year 2012, Shahid Afridi has played 16 out of Pakistan's 17 matches scoring just 182 runs at an average of 15.16 at a strike rate of 101.67. If that's not enough both his average and strike rate are less than that of Umar Gull's in 2012. 15 wickets at an average of 43.13 (Including 5 against Afghanistan) doesn't help either.

Shahid Afridi has just 8 wickets in 11 T20 matches this year at an average of 33.87. Poor lad, Yasir Arafat has 10 wickets in 6 T20 matches at an average of 12.10 (Even better than Saeed Ajmal's average) and he was dropped too. No one spoke for him?

The best criteria for anyone to be selected is recent performance and Shahid Afridi was just not good enough. Lets face the fact he was not even in the top fifty batsmen in the recently concluded FBT20 Tournament. Nor was the in the top 25 bowlers.

With all due respect, more often than not Shahid Afridi has let down Pakistan. Coming into bat and throwing his wicket away as if it means nothing, when Pakistan needed him the most. Letting go off pressure at crucial stages as a bowler. This is just not acceptable at the international level.

This dropping can only be good for Afridi. This will make him realize he needs to work harder on his game. If he thinks he can perform for Pakistan and win matches then there is no doubt he will bounce back. This perhaps will also make people realize that individuals are not greater than the team.