Pakistan fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi is set to fly out to Australia after completing his rehab in London. The ace pacer posted a photo with his physios ahead of his flight and thanked the team for their services. Shaheen has been in London with the Crystal Palace team. Pakistan will play their T20 World Cup 2022 opening match against rivals India on October 23 at the MCG ground and will hope for a redo of their match from the previous year’s tournament, when Babar Azam and co. defeated India by 10 wickets, their first win over the Men in Blue in World Cups after 12 consecutive losses.
India batters have not faced Shaheen for over a year as the fast bowler missed the Asia Cup owing to a knee injury. He had removed Rohit Sharma, and KL Rahul early in the T20 World Cup 2021 encounter to hurt India badly and then took the wicket of Virat Kohli to restrict India to just 151/7.
Former India opener Gautam Gambhir advised Indian batters on how to tackle the Shaheen Afridi problem and told them to score runs off him instead of just surviving. He said: "When it comes to Shaheen Afridi, don’t look to survive. Look to score runs from him. Because the moment you look to survive, everything becomes really small. Whether it’s your back lift, whether it’s your footwork, and obviously, in T20 cricket you can’t look to survive. I know that he can be dangerous with the new ball, but again, irrespective, the Indian batters need to score more runs, get into better positions, and look to time the balls rather than to hit it. India will be fine because India has got the quality in their top 3 or 4 who can definitely take on Shaheen Shah Afridi."
