Year in Review: Top 5 ODI performances of the year 2013

2. Shahid Afridi – 76 & 7/12 (Pakistan vs West Indies, Providence, St Kitts, July 2013)

Shahid Afridi – The Starman’s still got it!

All rounders will never die out from the game as long as the likes of Boom Boom Afridi are still around. The mercurial maverick has a knack for being unpredictable, and this game was one of those instances where this trait of his served to pilot his side to a crushing victory over the shell-shocked Caribbean squad.

Afridi is a walking time bomb – set to go off any second – and every international side is aware of this. For the major part of 2013, he would implode, leaving his side in the lurch more often than not. But he chose exactly the right stage to explode like a ton of bricks – calls for his removal from the squad had become increasingly loud since he had nothing to show in his previous six matches.

Jason Holder, one of the younger breed of West Indian pacers, had ripped through the Pakistani top order in an impressive display of speed and control. Misbah-ul-Haq stood resolute at one end, as has been his wont all year. Then Afridi walked in, and mayhem followed.

He blasted his third ball for a huge six, and attacked spinners Marlon Samuels and Sunil Narine with gay abandon, his kamikaze style of play proving to be highly effective. With Misbah, he pulled the side out of the hole they had dug themselves into, and steered them to a respectable score.

The fairytale didn’t end there. Using his mix of leg spinners, quicker ones, the odd off-break and the rare googly, Afridi winkled out seven of the West Indian batsmen, snuffing out any hopes of a fight that the crowd had waited for. Single-handed, the Pathan routed the opposition for just 98 – an abysmal score by today’s standards – as he finished with the second best bowling figures in ODIs.

The Starman isn’t calling it quits any time soon!