Har Lamha Purjosh with Shahid Afridi and Umar Sharif 29th March 2015 Part 2-uniqueclub
Afridi had the luxury his successors have never had; he walked into a winning team. A team that could carry his brain fades and allow him to be himself; by the time that generation passed, the Pakistani fan was so used to the "mercurial" Afridi that there was never a movement to try to correct his game. In fact, they loved him for being so out of the norm. The shot Umar Akmal played against India is one that Afridi has played dozens of times before - the ridiculously ill-timed and idiotic slog that flirts with the stars before coming down into a fielder's hands (think of the World Twenty20 final in 2007, probably the greatest of Afridi's senseless skiers). But while Akmal will be castigated, and whatever he will receive will still be less than he deserves, there was far less criticism of Afridi then, as there always is. In 2007, we blamed Misbah for not finishing it off. There was no point in blaming Afridi; it was just Shahid being Shahid, that's what we told ourselves. That's what we always tell ourselves, just Shahid being a Pathan, and we move on.
That is not to say that Afridi is given special treatment wrongly. Afridi, after all, is the living embodiment of the Pakistani dream. This is a country that believes in messiahs, whether in politics, sport, or elsewhere. The idea that one man can come in, change everything and take us to the mountaintop; it is this idea that explains why democracy has never been as beloved of the Pakistani populace as it is elsewhere; it is for this reason that the last military coup was celebrated in the city of the deposed leader; and it is for this reason that Afridi will play as long as he wants to play. Afridi is the personification of hope, of the light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, the light might be of an oncoming train, but it is still hope, however false it may be. And every now and then at the end of the tunnel we do actually emerge into the light. And all of us feel like Andy Dufresne - the river of excrement, the years in prison, none of that matters the moment the rain washes away everything. That is how we define our teams and our sportsmen, not with numbers and figures but with moments.
