In Pakistan, sports is another habit or say passion that everyone is having to become a sports person. Just like India, in Pakistan, people are more into cricket rather than any other sport. No doubt we had marvelous legends in cricket. Each year new legend born and that iconic player creates a trademark which makes the audience to remember him forever. Talking about Pakistani players, many outstanding batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders came with the charismatic level of the game that people remember their records. Just like Hanif Mohammed a classic legendary batsman of Pakistan known as “Little Master” who set a record of playing the longest innings in the test format. Scoring 337 against West Indies, playing for 970 minutes then after following that a year later, he scored the highest first-class innings with the 449 not out. Like legend Hanif, many other Pakistani players came, but among those players, one another player come out as a shining star. Who created a new way of seeing a cricket, set records at a very young age, broke his own records, being loved by all over the world, some call him LALA, BOOM BOOM, Yes I am talking about Shahid Khan Afridi, the era known as Afridism. Shahid Afridi is the former Pakistani skipper, at his time he scores the fastest century on just 37 deliveries. His fastest century record has been beaten by himself, he aggressive style of batting always scared the other teams. According to him, he considered himself as the better bowler rather than a batsman. In bowling figure, he has taken 48 Test wickets and over 350 in ODIs.
No doubt, at some point he made us proud, but on the other side, most of the time Afridi lovers has to face hard times. In an early stage, his batting wasn’t up to the mark the consistency couldn’t be seen in his batting. Under the supervision of Bob Wolmer, he improvised Afridi's shot selections which helped him in further. When T20 format introduced in 2007, the very first t20 world held in South Africa. In that tournament, his performance wasn’t good with the bat but brilliant with the ball. Although Pakistan lost the final, Afridi won the Player of the Tournament award and became the first player to receive that award first time in the World T20 History. But in 2009’s World T20 world cup, his actual performance seen by the world in both ways as a batsman and bowler. Scoring 54 in the semifinal against South Africa and leading the team to victory. Talking about Afridi without mentioning the records that he has set, in 2009 world T20 final against Sri Lanka at Lords, Afridi set some outstanding records:
· He became the first player to score a fifty in a successful run chase in a World T20 final.
· Afridi became the first player to score a fifty and to take at least a single wicket in a World T20 final.
· He also became the only player to win both the Player of the Final(2009) and the Player of the tournament awards in ICC World T20 history
After that, he became the Wt20 captain, which he lead the team in 2016 T20 world cup. With the poor performance with the bat, ball and as a captain Pakistan wasn’t able to even reach to the semis. PCB hinted the clue of Afridi's retirement but he didn’t accept the decision. In 2015 world cup, he retired from the ODI format and 2017 February he officially announced his retirement from the T20 format as well.
For so long years being criticized, blamed but still, people loved him. In April 2018, he was named in the World XI squad team against West Indies T20 match at Lords. You can also read more stories about Shahid Afridi on StreetBuzz.
Still, it has been one year he plays domestic cricket and still the love, support he receives from his fan is exceptional. Even other iconic players have stated: there will no other Afridi can be seen on the pitch. So yeah it can be said afridism is totally over, but still, the love for LALA is forever.