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Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Khan Afridi on Friday expressed his keenness to go for opening in the Toronto Twenty20 International Cricket Championship.

I know I am short of runs and I need a big innings. But it is very difficult to go out there to play big innings when a few balls are remaining and you have no option to hit out at every ball, he told a group of reporters at the Maple Leaf Ground here in King City.

I have opened the batting in the past and it gives you a chance to settle down and then bang the ball around, he commented.

Shahid Afridi scored seven runs in three balls with one massive six that went out of the park, took one wicket for 13 and accounted for one run out in Pakistan’s easy 35 runs victory over Canada in the opening game.

I am a bowling all-rounder which should be the other way around as I wanted to be a batting all-rounder, said Afridi, who smashed One-day Internationals fastest 37-ball hundred against Sri Lanka at Nairobi (Kenya) in 1996.

Shahid, one of world’s best all-rounders in the Twenty20 brand of cricket with 175 runs in 12 internationals at strike rate of over 160 and has taken 15 wickets, described Twenty20 as a popular brand of cricket because of the excitement and drama and great fun and entertainment in this fast paced era.

Source:Cricket News