LIVE analysis, Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) vs. Ashish Bagai (Canada)
Pakistan and Canada who are included in Pool ‘A’ will face each other in their third encounter of the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup 2011 on 3rd March. Men in
green have won their first two matches against minnow Kenya and mighty Sri Lanka while Canada have lost both of its ties with Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
Pakistani skipper Shahid Afridi is a complete package for his team for his marvelous batting and bowling performances. He has played a significant role in winning the initial matches of
the tournament as he claimed five wickets against Kenya and four against Sri Lanka for which he was awarded man of the match. He is not only a good spinner but is also famous for his big hitting batting style. Afridi has hit three of the top six centuries
in ODIs including the fastest in 37 balls which he made in his first international innings. The captain has also scored the second fastest fifty in 18 balls twice. Afridi is also the second batsman to score 32 runs in a single over in an ODI. His 228 sixes
in 295 ODIs are the most by any cricketer in the World.
After becoming the ODI captain of the Pakistani team in the Asia Cup in year 2010, Afridi scored a century against Sri Lanka in the first match. Owing to his aggressive batting style,
the skipper is also called as “Boom Boom Afridi”. His hard hitting batting style can change the situation of any match in minutes. He is the second player in the cricket history who scored more than 6000 runs and claimed 300 wickets. Most of his remarkable
achievements were seen on the subcontinent’s pitches. Afridi during the fifth match of the Asia Cup on 21 June 2010 made the record of hitting the most number of sixes in an ODI career. He also hit the sixth fastest century in an ODI off 53 balls.
Afridi has also given remarkable performance in his last ODI before ICC World Cup 2011 against New Zealand where the Pakistani team clinched the series under his captaincy.
The captain of the Ireland cricket team, Ashish Bagai, is one of the key players of its team. Although, Bagai specializes the role of wicket-keeping but he is also an important batsman
of his team. Having a stable batting style, he handles the tough situations with great confidence and gathers the runs by hitting strikes steadily. Bagai, earlier has featured in two World Cup campaigns but playing in the ICC World Cup 2011 will be a different
and challenging experience as he will have to show his performance as skipper as well.
He has featured in 56 ODIs scoring 1,758 runs at an average of 36.62 including two centuries and fourteen fifties. In nine ODIs of his two World Cup campaigns, he scored only 118 runs
at an average of 14.75. Bagai made his ODI debut against Bangladesh at Duran in World Cup 2003 where Canada were the winners. Bagai holds the record of the highest ODI score among the Canadians for his unbeaten 137 runs against Scotland.
Former Canadian captain Sunil Dhaniram describes Bagai as,
“Ashish is a consistent performer. Most importantly, he knows his own game.”
In order to reduce the chances of their omission Canada are needed to win the match against the Greenshirts.