Shaheen Shah Afridi rips apart Birmingham Bears with 4-wicket first over in T20 Blast

Nottinghamshire fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi was at his stupendous best in the T20 Blast 2023 match on Friday, June 30 against the Birmingham Bears.

At the Trent Bridge in Nottingham, the left-arm pacer finished with figures of 4-0-29-4 to give a glimpse of the damage he can do.

After the Outlaws asked the Bears to chase down 169, Afridi took his team off to an incredible start. His first delivery was a tad wayward as he leaked five wides, but from there on, he did not look back.

Starting with, Shaheen dismissed Alex Davies with a deadly in-swinging yorker. Davies perished for a golden duck. In the very next ball, Afridi rattled Chris Benjamin’s woodwork with a low full-toss after the batter went for a pre-meditated scoop.

With Afridi on a hat-trick, Dan Mousley picked up a single, after which opener Robert Yates got a single as well. But Afridi wasn’t finished for that over by any stretch of the imagination. He dismissed Mousley after Olly Stone took a stunning catch at short cover.

Shaheen kept growing in stature after he ripped the poles of Ed Bernard to be on a hat-trick for the second time in the match. However, Glenn Maxwell got a single in the first ball of the third over to deny Afridi the hat-trick. In the meantime, Afridi’s figures in the first over read 1-0-7-4.

Afridi’s efforts could not pay dividends as the Outlaws lost the match by two wickets. Yates, who witnessed all the carnage from the other end in the first over, stayed not out on 65 runs off 46 balls with the help of three fours and five sixes.

Later, Maxwell, Jacob Bethell and Jake Lintott scored 19, 27 and 27 not out to take the Bears past the finish line with five balls left in their innings.