It seems Shahid Afridi wasn’t too happy with Shaheen Afridi’s batting in the Asia Cup 2025 match against India.
In that game played on Sunday, September 14 at the Dubai International Stadium, Pakistan decided to bat first after winning the toss. But their batting lineup struggled against the Indian bowlers. None of the Pakistani batters looked comfortable at the crease, especially against the Indian spin attack which kept the score down.
Then Shaheen Afridi came in and changed things. He smashed 33 runs off just 16 balls, including four huge sixes, to take Pakistan to 127/9. He hit Kuldeep Yadav for a six early on and then repeated the shot against Varun Chakravarthy in the 18th over. In the final over he even hit Hardik Pandya for two sixes in a row.
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But Shahid Afridi, who is also Shaheen’s father-in-law, wasn’t impressed. Talking on Samaa TV he said he expects Shaheen to focus on his bowling, especially swinging the new ball and playing mind games with the batsmen. He felt Shaheen didn’t do that well enough against India.
Shahid Afridi also criticized the other Pakistani batters for being too aggressive from the start. He questioned the decision to bench Haris Rauf and said the current bowling attack wasn’t strong enough to win against India. He added that the team lacked a batter who could really take charge and win the match.
Meanwhile former Indian cricketer Kris Srikkanth didn’t mince words in his criticism of Shaheen Afridi’s bowling. In a video on his YouTube channel he joked that Shaheen might be better off as a full time batter, as he didn’t see much swing or pace in his bowling. He even wondered how Pakistan reached the 2022 T20 World Cup final, especially after seeing how easily Abhishek Sharma was hitting Shaheen for sixes. Srikkanth concluded that the Indian batsmen had turned Shaheen Afridi into an ordinary bowler.
