The topic came up when Shoaib Akhtar said in a recent interview that if he was in Pakistan superstar Shaheen Afridi’s place during the T20 World Cup Final, he would’ve taken painkillers and returned back to the field. Afridi hobbled off the ground at MCG, where he hurt his knee while fielding. While talking to a Pakistani channel recently, Shoaib said, “I would come to play. I would fall, fracture my knee, and have blood flowing down my face, but I would get up, take an injection, and resume bowling… Many would say that you’d break your knee. You will die. I would have stated that it is better to die but the World Cup is more significant. My knee would have been broken. I could fix it later but the moment would never come again.”
Responding to this and Shahid Afridi revealed that former Pakistani player used to take a lot of painkilling injections. He further stated: “Shoaib Akhtar took so many injections back then that he can’t even walk now. That is his class,” “Shoaib Akhtar is Shoaib Akhtar, and he can do it. But it is very difficult. Not everyone is Shoaib Akhtar. It’s difficult to play with an injury if you take injections and painkillers because, by doing so, you risk aggravating the injury further. Anyway, let’s leave Shoaib Akhtar alone!”
Shaheen Afridi injured his knee in the Test series against the Sri Lankans back in July 2022. But he recovered back in time for the T20 World Cup and produced a sensational performance in the semis and even in the final but Pakistan didn’t come up with a competitive score against England in the last hurdle.
