Shaheen Afridi seemed to be living his dream; being named Pakistan’s T20 skipper at just 23, it couldn’t get any better than this. He even won the toss and got to bowl first in the NZ vs PAK 1st T20I. To top that, he cleaned up Devon Conway in the very first over of the match. The pacer was on cloud nine.
But that’s what life does to you—pegs you back when you are on a high. From 1-1, New Zealand made 226 runs. Where did it all go wrong?
Well, it all started with Shaheen Afridi himself. In his second over, he was tonked for 24 runs by Finn Allen. From there on, nothing could stop the Kiwi massacre of Pakistani bowlers.
He returned in the 17th over, but the damage was done by then. He claimed the consolation wicket of Daryl Mitchell, who scored 61 runs off 27 balls but still gave away 12 runs in the over.
In his last over, Shaheen Afridi gave away 13 runs but got Adam Milne’s wicket on the last ball of the spell. On his captaincy debut, Afridi ended the match with the figures of 4-0-46-3.
However, it turned out that he wasn’t even the worst bowler of the day. Both Aamer Jamal and Usama Mir gave away more than 50 runs, as the Kiwis managed to score a mammoth 226 runs.
