Shahid Afridi goes mental, with predictable results

Normally, when cricketers do a mental they do really mad stuff, like burn down the Harare Cricket Club or attack a team-mate's offensive thighs with a bat. But, for Afridi, doing mental means playing some crazy shots for a bit until you have an unlikely high score in a short space of time.

This is what he did against Zimbabwe, when Pakistan were in trouble. Here’s what he said:

"It was a tough situation to come and bat in. We had just lost quick wickets and we needed to rebuild effectively and post a good total."

Right. So you come in and things are looking shaky at 78 for five. You need a steady rebuilding effort. So, what new approach does that entail, Afridi? Oh, well, I’ll just try and batter every ball for six. Same as usual I suppose.

What kind of deranged nutter thinks, “We need to preserve wickets now, TOOOONK!” This bloke is dangerous.

He also got “a key wicket” with his increasingly handy bowling in Zimbabwe’s faltering reply.

The Zims only lost by 37, which doesn’t seem that much. In fact, it seems especially close given that they were chasing a hefty 272.

Robin Brown, Zimbabwe's coach, argued that they failed to finish the Pakistanis off:

"We basically lacked the killer instinct that is required to polish things off."

Before you get a killer instinct, Robin, it might be an idea to get some basic game skills and generally not be rubbish. At the moment, I think that the Zims are improving, as they always have been, but they’re probably playing at 1990/91 levels at the moment. Which isn’t too bad, considering where they had been. But they have been repeatedly annihilated in this series.

Anyway, Afridi: respect to the nutter.