Not only did Shahid Afridi break the world record by scoring 100 from 37 balls, but he was also the oldest 16-year-old ever to play international cricket
CRICKET:Neil Manthorp
INTERNATIONAL one-day cricket has to produce something unbelievable these days to excite the pressbox. Generally, it’s all been seen before. And I mean genuinely unbelievable, not unbelievable as in “what a great cover drive, unbelievable shot”.
We thought something like that was happening in Kenya when Shahid Afridi was scoring 100 off 37 balls for Pakistan against Sri Lanka. The word “unbeleivable” was used as many times an over (by every journalist) as Afridi hit sixes. That’s nearly two an over.
If it wasn’t for the fact that we were sitting in the pleasant surroundings of the Nairobi Gymkhana Club “Cards Room” (cunningly converted into a press room) actually seeing the innings unfold, then we collectively would not have believed the story.
Quickly the young man’s bare essentials started to unfold. Only three (or four?) first class matches for a team called Karachi Whites in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy back home in Pakistan. Tidy record but nothing outstanding. Like many Pakistani first class matches the totals were in the region of 700 and young Shahid hadn’t got much of a look-in.
Most recent action was an under-19 “Test” series against the West Indies in which he had claimed a couple of 2-40s and 3-50s. Top score with the bat, at number nine, was 27. Only one journalist from Pakistan had made the trip from Karachi to Nairobi and he was now working overtime attempting to research the man/boy’s history.
“He’s bloody big for an under-19 player,” suggested a dubious Ray Williams from Sapa. Just then another six landed in the car park at least 100m from where Afridi stood. His 50 came up from 18 balls. “Bloody big.”
The journalist in question was Ilyas Beg from the Dawn Group of newspapers: “He must be nearly 19,” he conceded with a smile. But just to be sure, Ilyas strode confidently over to the Pakistani dressing room to check Afridi’s age with the team’s manager, Mushtaq Mohammed. Mushtaq knows a thing or two about being a young cricketer. He holds the world record, in fact, having taken to an international field at the age of 15 years and 124 days.
When Ilyas returned it was with considerably less confidence. In fact his noble, Imran Khan-style complexion looked positively pale. “Ahh, well, you see … his passport says March 1 1980.” Ilyas sat down to steady himself for the storm. Now we had something genuinely unbelievable.
Ilyas explained, hesitantly, that sometimes Pakistani parents don’t register the birth of a child quite as promptly as they might. Sometimes, he said, it might even be a year before they find their way to the registrar’s office. In Afridi’s case, however, the parents’ sense of direction was so poor it took them five years to find the way to the appropriate government building.
There are several reasons why this might be done, but the main one is obvious. In a country with so much poverty and with a still-burgeoning population, what better way to give your child a little head start than by allowing him to compete with his juniors? Just look at Waqar Younis. November 16 1971. Mmmm, 24 years old. He made his Test debut at 17, though. When he arrived at English county Surrey for his first season in 1990, the tabloids ridiculed his age and declared that he was probably bowling devastating in- swinging yorkers while still in the secure surrounds of his mother’s amniotic fluid.
For that matter, Pakistan captain Wasim Akram turned 30 on June 3 this year. Nothing strange about that until you encounter the man after a couple of days travel (from Toronto to Karachi to Nairobi in his case). His beard is almost completely grey. But then we musn’t start getting paranoid.
I asked Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga what he thought about the whole thing. He is a funny man, Arjuna, but he didn’t want to be drawn. “I will tell you a true story, though,” he volunteered. “Many years ago I captained the Sri Lankan under-23 team in a tournament also involving India and Pakistan. The three captains met socially in the evening and discussed the tournament and a few other things. One evening the Pakistan captain introduced me to his wife and nine- year-old son.”
There is another thing about Shahid Afridi that is genuinely unbelievable. Gary Kirsten summed it up best. “I promise you with all my heart, I am not exaggerating. His arm ball is Fanie de Villiers’s pace.”
This, of course, is impossible for a leg- spinner who bowls off four or five paces. Needless to say television replays confirmed that he chucked his quicker ball as surely as anything that Babe Ruth and Joe Dimaggio ever faced. Pinch hitter Pat Symcox displayed the most rueful grin ever seen on a cricket field when his middle stump was uprooted first ball by Afridi. “I didn’t bloody see it!” he chuckled.
Incidentally, news travelled slowly from Nairobi to Karachi so when an innocent phone call to Karachi Whites from an innocent member of the organising committee asking an innocent question about Afridi’s age for the match programme, the man at the other end hadn’t heard about his extraordinary innings. “I can’t remember his date of birth,” he said “but he’s 21.”
All of this is probably masking the real truth, which is that Shahid Afridi might develop into an extraordinary talent. I have often wondered what journalists felt and wrote when they saw a 16-year-old Don Bradman, Vivian Richards, Imran Khan, Mike Procter, Barry Richards or Graeme Pollock. Probably something similar to what we felt watching Shahid Afridi. After all, what’s in an age?