After a normal disastrous performance with the bat in the recently concluded India-Pakistan T20 series, Shahid Afridi has decided to hang up his boots again. After the 2nd T20, Gautam Bhimani caught hold of Mr. Boom Boom.
Gautam: What made you take this decision?
Afridi: “Yes it was a very well thought out decision! I had been thinking of this for a long time. The last time I hung my boots and made a comeback I started batting very well! It is a lucky thing for me!”
Gautam: Pardon me. I am a bit confused right now. You are talking about retirement aren’t you?
Afridi: When did I say I will retire! I am bored of retiring now. I just want to hang up my boots in the corridor. By comeback I mean that since there is so less cricket involving Pakistan nowadays, every series feels like a comeback.
Sunil Gavaskar intervenes: In case you have decided to hang up your boots let me give you a suggestion. Consider your corridor is a cricket pitch. You should hang the boots in such a way that the shoe laces should be pointing at a 120 degree angle towards deep point and the bottom face of the shoe should be angled at 35 degree towards sweeper cover.
Afridi: Thank you Sunil bhai. Inshallah I will make a good comeback soon and I promise I will try to play better than Rohit Sharma at least. Thanks.
Gautam: So Shahid, on an unrelated note what do you feel about the Kevin Peitersen episode?
Afridi: Well you see Kevin has showed that even a non-Pakistani cricketer can make several comebacks after retirement despite being involved in a pretty big controversy. I feel proud of him.
On a related note, a couple of days after the interview, Afridi was found trying to munch a red cricket ball. He stopped only when reminded that it is useful (though extremely dangerous) to munch cricket ball only in a cricket field.
As we drew closer to wrap up the interview, Afridi decided to give us some new year gifts. Bonus, you may like to call it. He thought these 5 batsmen don't deserve to play T20s. Like him, they hardly ever fire and most of the time are a pain in the wrong place for their teams.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul – For his inability to clear the field to which a commentator recently remarked in Sri Lanka Premier League after the opposition missed two simple run-out chances against him “I think they don’t want to get him out”.
Farhaan Behardein – For his recent exploits in the T20 World Cup for displaying an unsatisfied hunger for not scoring boundaries and playing a significant part in their non-choke exit from this World Cup.
Yusuf Pathan – He has developed an excellent hit ratio of playing good once in 30-40 innings and he has become a bowler’s favourite batsman. Nowadays he plays so slowly and without confidence that even Rahul Dravid of the late nineties would be ashamed.
Richard Levi – He is very similar to Yusuf Pathan both in size and performance. But he provides a much easier opportunity for bowlers to dismiss him. “Just bowl the ball straight”.
Mohammed Kaif – He is an excruciatingly slow batter and only God knows why he was selected by the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Maybe this is one of the first wrong decisions Mallya made before things went haywire for him.