Shahid Afridi hit a 37-ball ODI hundred in his first international innings
Sent in at number three as a pinch-hitter against Sri Lanka in October 1996, a teenage leg spinner who had not batted on debut struck eleven sixes and reached a hundred from 37 balls. That record for the fastest one-day century stood until 2014, and Shahid Afridi spent two more decades living up to it.
Afridi came from Tirah in the Khyber region, one of six brothers and five sisters, and credits an uncle who was an army colonel with steering him toward cricket. Stories of Imran Khan's captaincy at the 1992 World Cup taught him, he says, never to fear failure. His official birth year is 1980, yet his 2019 autobiography Game Changer gave 1975, a figure later blamed on a publishing error.
His Test debut arrived only in October 1998 against Australia, by which time he had already played 66 ODIs, then a record before a first Test. He took five wickets in that match, and on the following tour of India opened the batting to make 141. Coach Bob Woolmer later helped sharpen his shot selection, and in April 2005 he hit another hundred off 45 balls against India, matching Brian Lara for the second-fastest at the time.
Twenty20 suited him perfectly. Named player of the tournament at the 2007 T20 World Cup, he was player of the match in the 2009 final, scoring an unbeaten 54 and taking 1 for 20 as Pakistan won. He then succeeded Younis Khan as T20 captain, later leading the ODI side to the 2011 World Cup semi-finals. After retiring in February 2017, he returned briefly to captain a World XI in a 2018 hurricane-relief match.
Franchise cricket carried him around the globe, from Leicestershire and Kent to the IPL's first season with Deccan Chargers, the Big Bash, the Caribbean and Bangladesh. He captained Peshawar Zalmi in the Pakistan Super League and launched his own T10 competition, the Mega Stars League, in 2022. Away from the pitch his foundation funds schools and healthcare, and he has worked with UNICEF against polio.
Source: Shahid Afridi
