Chief selector predicted five-wickets for Afridi
Pakistan chief selector Abdul Qadir says he predicted a five-wicket haul for Shahid Afridi against Australia while teaching him the art of bowling sharp googlies.
"I told him (in the nets) 'you will pick up five wickets in the first match if you bowl according to the plan'," Qadir told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Afridi took one more wicket than what Qadir had predicted and finished with career best 6-38 against Australia in the first limited-overs international last Wednesday at Dubai.
Pakistan won the match by four wickets after successfully chasing down a target of 169 in the 45th over.
Afridi has spent a lot of time with Qadir in the last few months and has said he learnt a lot from him.
Qadir, 53, played 67 Tests and 104 one-dayers for Pakistan in a career divning 1977 to 1993. He took 236 Test wickets with his leg-break googlies at an average of 32.80 and 132 limited overs wickets at 26.16.
"It's (spin bowling) an art and if I can pass on something to our bowlers and they learn it, it's good for Pakistan," Qadir said.
"I even told him where to place fielders and he followed exactly that in the first match."
Afridi again bowled economically (2-38) on Friday, but could chip in with only two wickets in the second match as Australia leveled the series with a clinical six-wicket win.
"He forgot to utilize the area just outside the off stump which he used efficiently in the first game," Qadir said.
"Had he bowled more deliveries in that area, he would have definitely succeeded again."
In the first match, Afridi baffled the lower-order Australian batsmen with googlies and clean bowled Stuart Clark and Nathan Bracken after earlier denting the top order with the key wickets of Shane Watson and Andrew Symonds.
While Afridi is performing brilliantly, fast bowlers are struggling for wickets on the slow wickets with paceman Shoaib Akhtar yet to take a wicket (0-35, 0-32) in two matches and also not completing his quota of 10 overs in any one of the games.
Akhtar was recalled to the team after passing through a strenuous three-day camp at Lahore earlier this month, but is yet to make an impact on the Australians.
Former Test batsman Zaheer Abbas - in a television interview on Friday - advised the 33-year-old Akhtar to retire from international cricket as he didn't look fit and was also not "agile" in the field.
However Qadir defended Akhtar - also known as the Rawalpindi Express - and blamed the sluggish pitch at the newly built Dubai Sports City cricket stadium.
"It's unfair to talk about great players like Shoaib Akhtar because look at other fast bowlers' performances," Qadir said.
"Rao (Iftikhar) also didn't pick up a wicket in any of the two matches. Umar Gul took just one each in both matches.
"It's spinners who have performed and not the fast bowlers so why are we pointing fingers at Akhtar only."