Inzamam-ul-Haq has come down hard at Shaheen Afridi for promoting himself at No. 5 during Lahore Qalandar’s PSL encounter against Quetta Gladiators on Sunday. Despite scoring a quickfire half-century off 28 balls, Shaheen faced the wrath of Inzamam as the former Pakistan captain felt the captain and Abdullah Shafique consumed too many deliveries. And hence, from a position where the stage was set for Qalandars to lift themselves to a total above 200, all they ended up putting on the board was 166/7.
Inzamam stressed on the fact that a mere look at the Qalandars scorecard would glorify both Shaheen and Shafique’s effort, but in reality, it did the team more harm than good.
“This partnership between Abdullah Shafique and Shaheen Afridi… if you look at the scorecard, then it looks very impressive, scoring 55 off 34 balls and the other scoring 59 off 39 balls. But the scorecard doesn’t do justice to it. They played all the overs – almost 14 – and all you could take the total to was 167, whereas it should have been 200-plus. Did anyone feel that Lahore will be able to win from here? Or will Lahore defend it?” asked a miffed Inzamam on a Pakistan channel.
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The partnership that let Qalandars down
Shafique, who came at No. 3, remained unbeaten on 59 off 39 balls at a strike rate of 151.28. When he was joined by Shaheen, who scored a fifty off 28 balls – Qalandars’ score read 69/3. With 10.2 overs left, the team could only add 97 more runs even though Shaheen and Shafique added 91 runs for the fourth wicket. With power-hitters like David Wiese and Sikandar Raza lined up to come in next, Inzamam questioned whether the Qalandars can afford individual feats over team efforts.
“Shaheen coming in to bat at No. 5 but scoring at that pace is not good for the team. When you have specialists such as David Wiese and Sikandar Raza, the score could have been better. Oh bhai… tez khel (Boss, score faster). They need to take care of one big fact. If you start getting into individual efforts, the team’s cause will go for a toss,” added the former Pakistan captain.
The Qalandars, who were already eliminated from the race to the Playoffs, have finished at the bottom of the points table with just one win from 10 games. Even though a couple of league matches are left, it won’t be enough to save Shaheen and his team from the wooden spoon.
