T20 World Cup 2022: Don’t look to survive against Shaheen Shah Afridi – Gautam Gambhir’s advice to Indian batters

Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has advised the Indian batters to be aggressive against Pakistan’s gun fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi. The left-arm pacer had broken India’s top-order backbone in the previous edition of the T20 World Cup in the Super 12 contest.

Afridi had gotten rid of Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul in the very first over he bowled and had put Pakistan in front. However, Gambhir wants India’s top order to take the bull by its horns and score quick runs against the lanky paceman in the PowerPlay overs.

Meanwhile, Afridi will be short on game time as he recently recovered from his knee injury and will join the team in Australia.

“When it comes to Shaheen Afridi, don’t look to survive. Look to score runs from him. Because the moment you look to survive, everything becomes really small. Whether it’s your backlift, whether it’s your footwork, and obviously, in T20 cricket you can’t look to survive,” Gambhir said while speaking on the Star Sports show ‘Game Plan’.

“I know that he can be dangerous with the new ball, but again, irrespective, the Indian batters need to score more runs, get into better positions, and look to time the balls rather than to hit it.

“India will be fine because India has got the quality in their top 3 or 4 who can definitely take on Shaheen Shah Afridi,” the former world T20 winner added.

On the other hand, former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan, who had bagged the Man of the Match award in the 2007 T20 World Cup final against Pakistan, believes the team needs to be smart in their batting while playing at the iconic MCG.

“When you play at the MCG, the straight boundaries are not that big. It’s the side boundaries that are massive. Obviously, India need to be smart, especially the batting.

“Probably, it will be difficult to hit the side boundaries, so they have to play the gaps and probably convert the twos into threes and ones into twos, because running between the wickets will be very important,” he suggested.

India will begin their T20 World Cup campaign against Pakistan at the MCG on 23rd October.