Shaheen Afridi expresses his admiration for a Bollywood star

When the name ‘Afridi’ comes to the fore, only one person Shahid Afridi crosses the mind. However, there’s a new ‘Afridi’ who is steadfastly carving his reputation and stature as a cricketer- Shaheen Afridi. The 17-year old has been stupendous for Pakistan in the ongoing U19 World Cup 2018 in New Zealand.

The left-arm pacer has tormented oppositions with his left-arm fast bowling and is currently the second highest wicket-taker with nine wickets in three games. However, apart from cricket, the Pakistan pace-bowling prodigy also has interest in Bollywood movies. He was recently interviewed where he revealed his love for Hindi movies, named his favourite actor and talked about the lessons he learnt watching him over the years.

A Salman Khan fan

“Arre try me. I watch all Bollywood movies, so my Hindi is fantastic. I just saw Tiger Zindaa Hai recently, Sallu bhai ke bade fan hai!” (I’m a massive fan of Salman Khan.),” Afridi was quoted as saying by Wisden India.

He also accepted his limitations while speaking English and requested the media to conduct the interaction in his native language.

“This man of the match interview I did just now was only my second interview in English. I haven’t even learnt English in school, but I’m not too bad, right? But bhaijaan, can we have this chat in a mix of Urdu and Hindi, that will be good for both of us,” the left-armer added.

The fast bowler has recently been compared to Australian pacer Mitchell Starc owing to his height and similarity in action to that of the Kangaroo. The Khyber Agency-born cricketer also opined his thoughts on the comparisons drawn with Starc after his stupendous performance against Ireland U19.

“I don’t even think my action has any similarity with that of Starc’s, but people keep bringing it up on the internet, By the almighty’s grace, I have got a natural action, and I haven’t really tried to model it around anyone else’s.” the pacer replied.

Pakistan were stunned by Afghanistan in their opening game. of the tournament. However, riding Afridi’s masterclass with the leather, they stormed back to win back to back games against Ireland U19 and Sri Lanka U19 and subsequently booked a slot in the quarter-finals of the tournament.

For more details on Under 19 cricket, stay tuned on Crictracker.com