Dubai: Shahid Afridi, the dashing Pakistan allrounder and a big crowd favourite in the UAE, cannot wait for the one-day series against Australia to start.
"There is a tremendous hunger among the team to win and all of us are looking forward for the series to begin," Afridi told Gulf News from his hotel room.
The first one-dayer comes off at the newly-built cricket stadium in Dubai Sports City on April 22.
Stepping into Dubai from Karachi Thursday morning, Afridi said that with no international cricket currently happening in Pakistan, there is an extra urge among his teammates to prove themselves.
"The team has also started to combine well under Younus Khan's captaincy and the series could not have come at a better time. The boys enjoy a great comfort level in the UAE and hopefully, we will have a good series," he said.
While the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has chosen the UAE as "home" for this series, Afridi has a special affinity for the crowds here since the Sharjah days because of the huge presence of Pathans.
"Each community has its own heroes and they have treated me like one in Sharjah and recently in Abu Dhabi. Aapne admi ke samne perform karne me jyada maaza ayega (It will give me greater pleasure to perform well before your own men)," he said.
Asked if the present Australian team will be any easier to take on than the ones in the past, Afridi sounded a word of caution for his teammates.
"See, the team is still trying to come to terms with the loss of greats like Hayden, McGrath and Warne. Every team has to go through such a phase of transition and that too with the captain [Ricky Ponting] not in the best of form.
"However, the advantage with the Australians is their basics are very strong with the academies and other things in place to produce fresh talent. As opponents, I would say that this is the best time to go after them," said Afridi. The world champions have been humbled 3-1 in the ongoing one-day series against South Africa, with the final one-dayer scheduled today.
Will it make things any easier now that Brett Lee has also been ruled out of the series after failing to recover from the ankle injury?
"Looks like the Lady Luck is with us this time," Afridi said tongue-in-cheek.
Moving to the topic of terrorism and cricket, Afridi reiterated his appeal to the cricket-playing community of the sub-continent to rally behind each other.
"I would like to compliment the Sri Lankan cricketers for taking a stance that they would still be ready to come back to Pakistan.
"I think the Asian cricket community should help each other to keep the game going in this part of the world," he added.
Your comments
we need players like afridi - brave and mature in words and for your information that there is a team coming to the international cricket with 11 afridi's ( Afghanistan).
From A Reader
Dubai,UAE
Posted: April 17, 2009, 14:02
i really appreciate that he and other players are ambitious to play with aussies,but i want to give one advice to Afridi that after playing too many one dayers now he must hold a good temprament because cricket is played not only with passion but also with a cool brain, but i know this'll not work for him. so b boom boom Afridi not the bold bold Afridi.
Mohammad Rehan
Lahore,Pakistan
Posted: April 17, 2009, 10:22
