Watch: Shaheen Afridi cleans up Mohammad Rizwan with accurate yorker

Making his comeback to competitive cricket, Shaheen Afridi delivered a superb performance in the opening game of the Pakistan T20 league.

After undergoing a sustained rehab for a knee injury, the left-arm speedster came up with an exceptional spell of 1/27 off his 4 overs for Lahore.

Shaheen Afridi led his troops from the front despite spending nearly four months away from the game and helped Lahore come out triumphant by just 1 run in a thriller versus Multan.

Afridi’s only wicket for the night was a game-changing one, as he dismissed opposition skipper and well-set wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan with an absolute beauty and inspired his team’s brilliant comeback.

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Shaheen gets Rizwan with a beauty

The wicket arrived when Multan were bossing the game in the middle. Chasing a target of 176, they found themselves 131/1 at the halfway mark of the 16th over.

Even though the asking rate was close to nine an over, wickets in hand with Rizwan showing good control and command of the proceedings via his 50-ball 75 was expected to propel Multan through.

Shaheen Afridi, however, had different ideas about the match as he got Rizwan out with a lovely off-cutter that hit the base of the leg-stump.

Anticipating another yorker from the opposition seamer, Rizwan advanced at the ball to try and loft it over mid-off or mid-on. But the well-disguised slower ball, a cutter, evaded the right-hander’s downswing and hit the leg-stump with pinpoint precision.

https://twitter.com/thePSLt20/status/1625211501085872129?t=zqcxKlNg-8_1mjbsec7f9g&s=19

It was this wicket delivered by Lahore skipper Shaheen Afridi that brought them back into the game as Multan suffered a dip in their run-scoring, giving the opposition a backdoor entry into the contest and ultimately conceding a one-run defeat.

On the personal front, the young seamer would be delighted to have not just gotten one-up on his Pakistan teammate and friend but also to have led Lahore to a win over Multan at the start of Pakistan T20 league, while himself regaining his control and incisiveness on comeback after four long months.