Asia Cup: Shaheen Afridi keeps rattling India's top like only he can

The Pakistan pace spearhead produced two magical deliveries to dismiss Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the Asia Cup tie at Pallekele on Saturday.

The hardest thing is to repeat the boring stuff. Not for Shaheen Shah Afridi. How many times have we seen him do this to India? Pitch the ball on the middle stump, take it away from the right-hander again and again till it bends the other way. We know batters train for these scenarios. But so rattling is Afridi’s incoming delivery that it’s likely to be his most defining memory when he is done with cricket. It’s not that India haven’t tried. Shuffle across the stumps? Done. Play late? That too. Afridi still sneaks through.

Pakistan's Shaheen Shah Afridi celebrates after taking the wicket of India's Hardik Pandya (not pictured) during the Asia Cup 2023 ODI match at Pallekele (AFP)

Absolutely magical were those two Afridi deliveries that cleaned up Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul at the 2021 T20 World Cup. The swing was more prominent in Dubai, and neither batter did his reputation any favour by losing balance in a bid to counter the movement. But these are the type of mishaps that serve as a lesson and help you prepare. And you could notice that caution in Sharma’s stance on Saturday in India's opening Asia Cup game at Pallekele. He was measured, presenting the full face of the bat, trying to be compact in every possible way, all to see out Afridi’s initial spell.

Afridi ramped up his pace though. Not by a lot, yet enough to hurry on to Sharma. And he also shortened his length by a couple of yards once play resumed after a brief spell of rain. Several close-up replays only heighten the intrigue that builds up to the moment a batter loads up for a trap he was both dreading and preparing for. This was on a length around off, and instead of leaving the batter or holding its line, this ball cut back a little. Sharma’s bat was slightly slow to come down, giving Afridi enough time to get through and peg back the off-stump.

Virat Kohli’s dismissal came eight balls later but such was the one-way traffic that it didn’t feel like Afridi was bowling his next over. With Shubman Gill scratching around, India hadn’t made a dent by the seventh over, so Kohli wasn’t wrong in trying to get the score going. The choice of shot however wasn’t the most prudent, especially on a sticky pitch where the ball tended to stop and come.

This was short of length outside off, prompting Kohli to open his bat and glide it down to third man for a single. But he wasn’t in position. Afridi’s delivery took a massive inside edge onto Kohli’s pad before crashing into his leg stump. India were 27/2 and Afridi was off celebrating. Later, the broadcaster showed that in ODIs since 2021, Sharma averages 22.8 against left-armers and Kohli 21.8.

But once again we saw that Afridi probably dredges deeper insecurities.