Shoaib Akhtar scared Sachin Tendulkar a few times and pushed him on backfoot, claims Shahid Afridi

Fans still fondly remember Sachin Tendulkar smashing Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup at the Supersport Park in Centurion. Also, it isn’t the only time when the master blaster got the better of the Rawalpindi Express on the field. Akhtar also had the last laugh a few times in overall 28 face-offs against Sachin at the international level.

However, former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi has claimed that Shoaib Akhtar did scare world’s best batsmen including the Indian maestro sometimes with his fiery spells. Afridi has been in the news for his controversial comments over the last few months and had contracted Coronavirus as well. He recently announced though he has been tested negative and seems to have recovered from the disease.

He went live with Pakistan’s sports presenter Zainab Abbas on Monday and spoke at length about his relationship with India and a lot of other topics. When asked about the duel between Shoaib Akhtar and Sachin Tendulkar, he claimed that the former was on top of the Mumbai cricketer at times and he himself had sensed it while fielding from covers or mid-off.

“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 onto the backfoot,” Afridi said. As far as the numbers are concerned, Sachin Tendulkar got out to Akhtar thrice in nine Test and five times in 19 ODIs.

Sachin Tendulkar looked scared to faced Ajmal too, says Afridi

The 40-year-old also went on to say that Sachin looked scared to him while facing Saeed Ajmal during the 2011 World Cup. India faced Pakistan in the semi-final in Mohali and the hosts managed to beat their arch-rivals to make it to the final. Sachin Tendulkar had scored 80-odd runs in the game and was the highest run-getter of the innings for India.

Interestingly, Ajmal had pinned him in front of the stumps only for the batsman to overturn the decision via DRS. “During the World Cup, he also looked scared of Saeed Ajmal. It”s not a big deal, players do feel the pressure at times and it becomes difficult,” Afridi further added.