Among Afridi’s many talents is also the ability to drive Pakistanis to extremes of passion.—AFP photo

His name is scattered among the world records of limited-overs cricket. He has the highest career strike rate (over 113 runs per 100 balls) for any player who has played more than 50 ODIs.

He once plundered 32 runs off a single over, which is the second-most costly over in ODI history. He has also scored five of the 12 fastest-ever 50s, and three of the seven fastest-ever 100s, including the fastest ODI 100 of all time (off 37 balls, against Sri Lanka in 1996). He loves boundaries and has hit more sixes (367, from all three forms of the game combined) than anyone else.

As a bowler, he is 10th in the all-time list of ODI wicket-takers and first in the list of T20 wicket-takers. His leg-spin bowling has been rated highly by no less a personage than Shane Warne. He can bowl variations like a magician. His fast ball can make frontline seamers jealous. His googly can turn like a Saqlain off-break. His top-spinner explodes like a thunderbolt. His leg-break zips across the face of the bat.

He is a world-class fielder — third-highest in the list of ODI catches from Pakistan, and with a formidable reputation for dynamic ground-fielding. He will stop drives that had a boundary written all over them. He takes catches that did not seem humanly possible, and he takes them at the crucial moments.

In ODIs, his captaincy record includes series wins in West Indies and New Zealand, tightly-fought series against South Africa and England, and a semi-final finish in the 2011 World Cup. His leadership during the World Cup was especially remarkable because he took his team so far despite abysmal batting, amateur fielding, scandal fatigue, and shattered morale. No Pakistani has won more man-of-the-match awards in limited-overs cricket (ODIs and T20 combined) than this man.

And yet Shahid Khan Afridi continues to have his detractors. Even many knowledgeable and otherwise sensible fans find it hard to accept his contributions and value to the team. Undeniably, among Afridi’s many talents is also the ability to drive Pakistanis to extremes of passion.

To an extent, one can sympathise with the critics. After years of watching Afridi senselessly throw his wicket away, they can no longer bear the torture. In a surreal kind of negative Pavlovian conditioning, they have reached the point that even the mere sight or mention of Afridi unleashes anxiety and panic.

Afridi does have some mature batting performances under his belt, but this only makes his critics angrier. When you mention his match-winning 50s in the semi-final and final of the 2009 T20 World Cup, or his landmark innings of 141 that proved decisive in winning the Chennai Test of 1998, his critics respond by making tortured faces and foaming at the mouth. Why can’t he bat like that all the time, is the constant refrain. He has the ability, so why does he squander it? This is the crux of their discontent.

If you trace these emotions back through history, they ultimately lead to an eventful day in October 1996, when Pakistan were engaged in a four-nation ODI tournament that also included Sri Lanka and South Africa, in addition to the host nation Kenya.

The team needed a wrist-spinner because the regular leggie, Mushtaq Ahmed, was injured. Captain Saeed Anwar sent an SOS home. Word came back of a rookie leg-spinner named Shahid Afridi who had done well with the Pakistan A side.

On October 4, 1996, Afridi went out to bat for the first time in international cricket. When he returned, he had smashed a century off 37 balls — a new world record. The opposition was Sri Lanka, the venue was Nairobi Gymkhana. This feat captured the cricket world’s imagination so forcefully, that every time Afridi has gone out to bat, we have expected fireworks.

If his record-breaking hundred cast such a magical spell on us, imagine what it must have done to Afridi himself. It made him a batting wreck. He became an unselective slogger, trying to lift every delivery over the ropes. Sometimes it worked, more often it did not.

It’s not possible to understand Afridi as a cricketer unless you put your disappointments from his batting aside. You have to look at other aspects of his cricket to appreciate his focus, which is sharp and intense, and his dedication, which is untiring and limitless.

There are, of course, other irritants associated with him. He once tried to rough up a Test pitch with his shoe spikes, and there is also the notorious incident when he tried to bite the ball in the middle of an ODI. In his defence, it can be pointed out that on both occasions he accepted guilt and showed contrition. We know others who have done far worse.

More recently, Afridi has fought with outgoing coach Waqar Younis and (perhaps also outgoing) PCB chief Ijaz Butt. Insiders say Waqar did not fully make the mental transition from being in the limelight as a star player to a behind-the-scenes role as the national coach. This led to friction during Afridi’s captaincy tenure because Waqar interfered with operational issues, which was not his domain.

As for Ijaz Butt, it is hard to take the confrontation between him and Afridi seriously. The former will be remembered as the butt of many jokes, while the latter will go down in history as a widely admired and feared cricketer whose service to Pakistan in limited-overs cricket is second to none.