Pakistan's newly-appointed T20I captain Shaheeh Shah Afridi has copped jibes from the netizens after surprisingly blaming the speed guns for his low pace than usual during the recent Test series in Australia.
The left-arm speedster gave the statement during the press conference on Thursday ahead of the five-game T20I series against New Zealand.
During the press conference on Thursday, the 23-year-old revealed that he was stunned to see the speed guns showing only 132-133 kmph, given he usually bowls around 140+. The pace spearhead stated:
“To be honest, when we were bowling, we were watching the board [big screen] ourselves,. 'Are we really this [slow]?’ We couldn’t understand. We had been bowling since the start, putting in so much effort, yet the speeds were coming up to 132-133 [kph].
“We were surprised and were thinking ‘Has it been decided [by the broadcasters] that the speed gun won’t go above this?'” Pakistan's new T20I skipper said ahead of the series in New Zealand.
But his statement drew hilarious reactions from netizens as they refused to buy Afridi's excuse over the drop in pace of the Pakistani fast bowlers during the three Tests in Australia.
Here's how the netizens have trolled Afridi for his statement:
Pak bowlers losing steam
Pakistan bowlers faced a lot of flak from their cricketing fraternity over the medium-pace bowling against the Aussies.
Former Pakistan coach Waqar Younis even questioned Afridi's fitness after noticing a sharp drop in his pace in the two Tests he played in the series.
"If he’s not fit, if he’s got some issues, I think he needs to go away from the game and fix that. If you’re just going to carry on like that, then you are going to become a medium pacer.
"He used to bowl 145, 150 [kph] all days and bowl really quickly and swing that ball. What I’m seeing right now, yeah there’s a little bit of swing there, but his pace is way down,” Younis told ESPNCricinfo before the 2nd Test.
