Shahid Afridi hails Yasir Shah for his sensational bowling performance

Pakistan after a slow batting approach made a bold declaration on 418/5 towards the end of Day 2. It was up to the bowlers now to restrict the Kiwis and make sure this call by the skipper was worth it after all. New Zealand had a decent enough start with Tom Latham and Jeet Raval adding 50 runs for the first wicket. But once that partnership was broken there was no spine in the batting and were bowled out for 90. Leg-spinner Yasir Shah was the middle of this disaster and in fact, orchestrated it.

It was Yasir who broke through and cleaned up Raval in the 22nd over. The Kiwis were 61 for the loss of just a wicket when Latham was caught by Imam-ul-Haq again off the leg-spinner. Thereafter, it was one of the worst slides we’ve seen this year. The leg-spinner had gone wicket-less in the first seven overs of his spell but his eight was a triple wicket maiden.

New Zealand didn’t have enough strength in their batting to recover from there and the incoming batsmen found the bowling too good to stay at the crease even for 10 balls. Apart from the top three, the most a batsman lasted was for seven balls. The leg-spinner ended the innings with career-best figures of 12.3-1-41-8.

Yasir’s effort impressed one of the better leg-spinners and fellow countryman, Shahid Afridi hailed the 32-year-old for his sensational bowling effort. Afridi said that it was a dream day for the leg-spinner and called him a champion. Not just that the former skipper also said Yasir was on his way to becoming one of the greatest Pakistan spinners ever.

Here is Afridi’s tweet:

New Zealand in response to Pakistan’s 418 were bowled out for 90 in the first innings and were asked to follow-on. In the second innings though the team has shown a lot of character and resistance to not let it slip out of hands. The last two days of the match thus promise to be really interesting since the hosts will sense a chance to level the series heading into the last game.

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