There are the greats.
There are the legends.
And then there are those sportsmen who transcend labels, those who represent something greater than merely excellence in their respective disciplines.
Jessie Owens. Mohammed Ali.
And Shahid Afridi.
For me, and dare I say for many others, Afridi is not just merely a ball-biting, pitch-scuffing, boom boomer that wears the jersey of our next door bomber.
He is the very anthropomorphism of its foreign policy.
Like when he sticks out his crotch after getting a wicket, Afridi becomes an emphatic visual metaphor for the Pakistani position of “Yeah so we are going to support the Haqqani Network and other terrorists, so what you going to do about it eh?”
The Pakistani establishment attacks the car windows of the US with vigorous blows, threatening to puncture their tyres or scratch the side with their can-tips unless the Yanks cross their palms with silver. Then after filling their pockets, they turn around, burn the US flag and arm their enemies, before running once again as the US car stops at the light.
Reflecting that defining characteristic of Pakistani foreign policy, Afridi can be found aggressively insisting on playing in the cash-rich IPL (not for himself, as he adds, but for other Pakistani cricketers)and then abusing Indians for not being big-hearted enough, at least not in comparison to Pakistanis, when rebuffed.
Both of them share the same love for the unvarnished truth—the Hindu-Zionist conspiracies, India stage-managed 26/11, India lost to Pakistan in every war and that Afridi was sixteen when he first burst onto the cricketing arena.
And together, they are responsible for two of the greatest laugh-out-loud lines of modern times, morbidly ironic because of the mouths they come out of and their track records.
The first is ” We are fighting terrorism”.
And the second is, of course, “I retire”.
Welcome back Shahid Afridi. We missed you.
The Greatbong Blog & Podcast 
First. Iphone please! He ho ha!
second.i phone dede
third!
forth.. since i am late ..mein iPad se kaam chala lunga..i am not greedy like others 😛
Brace yourselves. The “don’t mix cricket with politics” comments are coming.
in the top ten! but such a short piece for a sunday morning read 😦
Ind-Pak cricket matches have always had hate figures……Javed Miandad for eg. off late there are none, the bonhomie on field and off the field takes away a great deal out of the contests…..Afridi is the last of the list of players from across the borders we loved to hate when they played against us and hated to love when they kicked Pom or Aussie asses…..So even though i knew that Afridi will be the most retired player of his generation….i never doubted his come back…….and I am glad that he is back…….
PS: I am sure Shoib Malik’s apology to all muslims of the world at losing the T20 final to india, made him a hate figure here….but then he married Sania Mirza and I am not sure about his status now…….
I was there at the match (WACA Perth) when Shaid Afridi bit the ball, It was this delay which made the drunk guy have one more drink and streak across the field. It was fun. Although Surprising how could an experienced player like him :bite: a ball and think of getting away with it when people have been caught scratching the ball and getting caught. I guess he should not have dropped out of the school soon.
too short 😦
one of the great mysteries of the world:how come pakistani players retire at the drop of a hat and then come back as if nothing happened.I think they take the meaning of retirement as a sabbatical rather than permanent leave ,even magnificent players like mhd. yousuf have made a joke of themselves.
PS:I think i started the iPhone tradition here…..:)
Came back to your blog after a long time and amazed that early birds have still kept the ritual of asking for a gadget alive. Except that it used to be an ipod even the last time I was here and now it’s iphone. May be there have been ipod demands too.
Anyway, very funny indeed.
Well spotted. There is something so weird about that country that it is becoming a case study for weirdness. It’s like some companies where you see an obviously bad manager who does things which begs for his ass to be handed to him, and instead keeps getting promoted. I guess we just have to wait for the right set of circumstances to fall in place for the country’s leadership to get the living daylights smacked out of them. As for Afridi, he will probably be there only when it happens, celebrating his 18th birthday.
How old is Afridi?
All that doesn’t matter. Afridi is good looking, and hence irrespective of anything else Indian women will try to get him to their “humble home” for a cup of tea.
If Steve Jobs is God, iPads are Pakistani men and mactards are Indian women.
‘Afridi is not just merely a ball-biting, pitch-scuffing, boom boomer that wears the jersey of our next door bomber.
He is the very anthropomorphism of its foreign policy.’
As Harsha Bhogle said on Twitter, why aren’t you writing in the mainstream media?
Brilliant piece!
Afridi ka (Allah ne no jiya hai, woh) dil dariya hai, aur gaand samandar.
….aur khopri bilkul khokhla hai.
Kopri jo “samundar” hai uske andar
@froginthewell
gee never realised pakis were so popular…funny enough the pakis i know overseas are actually really hesitant to state the country they come from..its become a kind of black mark to admit they are paki…
anyway the nation is pretty much trapped like rats in a trap now..cant see any way they can get out of this af-pak mess in one piece…id give them till 2015 …and then kansas is gonna go bye-bye…)
Ok, So I am really interested to know, are you really giving out ipod,iphone or iPads!!
weird promo technique, but I kinda like it!! 😛
p.s. lemme know…
GB … you have to read this … some random google search threw me to this Wiki page …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-West_Frontier_%28military_history%29
Check out the section titled Treatment of POWS … So would it be logical to deduce that Shahid Afridi is a descendant of these “brave” women ?
@prasun : The article was very serious till i read the word ‘afridi’ on that section. Then, i fell on the floor laughing