Karachi: Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan allrounder, is prepared to review his own One-Day International career for the sake of infusing youngsters into the team in time for the 2015 World Cup.
Afridi is in the middle of a poor run, having managed just 28 runs in four innings in a five-match ODI series against Sri Lanka. And while he claimed three wickets, it came at 48.66 runs a wicket. Pakistan lost the series 1-3. "Our performance was not what we expected," said Afridi. "Now I want to consult my elders and then decide on my one-day future. I will have to sincerely review where I stand as far as my performance is concerned."
Inconsistency has been a problem for Afridi this year. He took just three wickets in a five-match series against England in February. With the 2015 World Cup in mind, retirement is a possibility, Afridi said. "I will make a decision soon but I have yet to decide on retirement. I will continue playing Twenty20 cricket if I leave one-dayers. I want to leave the stage for youngsters so that Pakistan can have a good team by 2015."
Fielding has been highlighted as one of the reasons for Pakistan's failure against Sri Lanka. "Sri Lanka used their conditions very well and they are a strong team in their conditions, so they fared better than us," he said. "We lost mainly because of poor fielding. This has been our weakness ever since I started playing cricket, so we need to overcome that problem."
Afridi previously retired from all forms of cricket in 2011 after a fall-out with then Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt, only to rescind his decision after Zaka Ashraf took over as chairman later the same year.
No comments:
Post a Comment