Sachin Tendulkar was scared of facing Shoaib Akhtar, Saeed Ajmal: Shahid Afridi strikes with absurd claim

Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi is back making headlines with his absurd claims as in his latest episode, the former all-rounder went back to his nine-year-old statement and said that Sachin Tendulkar was scared of facing Shoaib Akhtar.

Afridi said that Tendulkar won’t accept that he was scared to face Akhtar but added that he witnessed Tendulkar struggle against Akhtar during some of his spells.

“Dekhiye Sachin Tendulkar aapne muh se toh nahi kahega ki main dar raha hu. (Sachin obviously won’t say it himself that ‘I’m scared’) There were some spells from Shoaib Akhtar in which not only Sachin but some of the world’s best also got shaken up.

“When you are fielding at mid-off or covers, you can see it. You can sense the body language of a player. You can easily understand that a batsman is under pressure, he is not at his usual best. I’m not saying that Shoaib has scared Tendulkar always but there have been some spells from Shoaib that have pushed some of the world’s best including Tendulkar on to the backfoot,” Afridi told Zainab Abbas when he was asked about his statement in 2011 that Tendulkar was scared of facing Akhtar.

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In 2011, Akhtar, in his book ‘Controversially Yours’ had claimed that the Master Blaster was scared to face him and Afridi had backed his teammate’s claim.  “He (Tendulkar) was scared of Shoaib. I have seen it myself. I was fielding at square leg and saw his legs trembling when Shoaib came on to bowl.”

Afridi further said that Tendulkar was scared of facing Saeed Ajmal during the World Cup. 

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“It’s not a big deal, players do feel the pressure at times and it becomes difficult,” Afridi, who has scored 1524 runs in 67 ODIs and 709 runs from eights Tests against India.

Interestingly, Tendulkar holds a brilliant average of 41.60 against Akhtar in Test cricket while scoring 416 runs. Akhtar, on the other hand, dismissed him thrice. Whereas in ODIs, Tendulkar has scored 864 runs at an average of 45.47 and a strike-rate of 90.18 with the Rawalpindi Express dismissing the Master Blaster five times in 19 ODIs.