Rockstar Afridi needs a new hit

It is the classic conundrum most upcoming bands face at some point. They break through with a song that becomes a big hit. They play it at all their live appearances. It's the one fans want to hear most and the one they recognise them by; the one that gives them an identity. It's a great song. So they keep playing it. Until one day the band has been playing it long enough that fans begin to wonder about the rest of their repertoire - this is great, but surely there's more?

Shaheen Shah Afridi is not a band - though he is pretty rockstar - but he does find himself facing up to a similar conundrum. His inswinging yorkers in the opening phases of a game have become his signature hit. His first bursts are the white-ball events you dare not miss. But after three games of the cut and thrust of a World Cup - and the Asia Cup before it - matters have reached a point where it's reasonable to question if it is wearing slightly thin, if he might be overdoing it. And so the question: what else does he have?

To begin with, this is a slightly imperfect analogy. Afridi is, and has always been, more than that one-trick pony. His overall numbers this year do not speak of a dip: nearly two wickets a game, and average, strike rate and economy mirroring to a freakish degree his excellent career numbers.

It's just that the one trick has been so potent and spectacular, and so established, that it has become somewhat of a monster. Time and again since Afridi's return from the serious knee injury he suffered last year, he has fed it.

But especially during the Asia Cup and this World Cup so far, it hasn't quite landed right. It is such a finely calibrated weapon where everything needs to hit just right that the tiniest errors render it impotent. The line has strayed a touch leg side, the length often a little too full, the pace down a few clicks. Batters know what's coming so they have begun to attack him, aided by the fact that it's not coming right.

The indelible impression over this period has been that he is striving too hard for that magic ball, to the detriment of the overall impact of his opening spells. That sense is borne out by the data. Until his injury in July 2022, for example, nearly a quarter of all deliveries he bowled in the first ten overs of an ODI were classified as full by ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball logs. Since then, that proportion has gone up to nearly a third. Most notably, he is bowling four times as many full tosses in the first ten overs since his return.

It has been accompanied by an overall dip in pace too. His average speed through the Asia Cup was 135.3kph, but at the World Cup it has been 133.1kph. Those are down from the higher 130s he was hitting two years ago, and he is crossing 140kph less often than he used to. It could be because of anxieties about the knee, a psychological wrinkle that is perfectly natural for athletes returning after long layoffs, and which will likely iron itself out the more he plays.

But there's also some thought in the camp that the decline in speed is a technical outcome of the result of striving too much for that ball, displacing the momentum in his action a little. Either way, he has momentarily lost some zip, and as a result the swing has been slightly less hot to handle. Afridi at his best with the new ball is about a little bit, and not a lot, of late swing, and at a higher pace than most who swing it.

The contrast in impact before and after his injury across the opening ten overs of an ODI is clear. Until the summer of 2022, his strike rate in the first powerplay was 28.37 at an economy of 4.87. After his return in April this year, his strike rate is 45.75 and the economy 5.34.

Other factors could be playing into it. There is no Naseem Shah to feed off at the other end. They have only played eight ODIs together, but Naseem's presence has generally reaped better results for Afridi: he gets his wickets at over a run cheaper and strikes two balls quicker with him than without.

There is also some mixing up of his white-ball records, in effect, here. His reputation as a dominator of opening overs is built, primarily, in T20s. His record in the first two overs of a T20 is extraordinary, and while it is still very good in ODIs (a strike rate of 25.2, against 18.8 in T20), that only serves to emphasise the difference between the two formats.

This World Cup, the first real concentrated bout of ODI cricket on the calendar in four years, is a reminder that the format still veers closer to Tests than it does to T20s. For all the attacking brio T20s have injected into ODIs, the longer format still requires a degree of care and patience, asks for an innings to be built, for a spell to be constructed, over a longer period.

At times over the last few months, it has felt as if Afridi has treated the two formats as the same; no surprise given how much more T20 he has played than 50-over cricket in the last four years. But it is something those around him are trying to rectify. The messaging from the management recently has been to pull lengths back sooner to target the top of off stump rather than dwelling for too long on shins and toes; to not always look to blast batters out but to develop the capacity to build up to a wicket.

But the message hasn't landed yet. Afridi is a headstrong young man, the kind who will double down on a perceived strength if people tell him it's not as much of a strength as he thinks; and more so since he has become the biggest superstar in Pakistan cricket alongside Babar Azam over the last 18 months. It could be an ego thing as much as anything else.