AFP, Karachi :
Dashing Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi announced Sunday he would retire from one-day cricket after next year’s World Cup but continue to play Twenty20 until 2016.
The 34-year-old led Pakistan for the last three one-day internationals in the series which they lost 2-3 against New Zealand this month, after regular captain Misbah-ul Haq was ruled out due to injury. He smashed a match-winning 61 in the first match and followed that up with 55 and 49.
“I will retire from one-day cricket after the World Cup,” Afridi told a press conference.
“I wanted to leave on the peak. I think it’s the right time to leave so that my place goes to a youngster and there are very talented players in Pakistan.”
Australia and New Zealand will co-host the World Cup from February 14 to March 29. The swashbuckling batsman hit the fastest one-day hundred off just 36 balls in only his second match, against Sri Lanka in Nairobi in 1996, a record which New Zealand’s Corey Anderson broke earlier this year. Anderson made a 35-ball hundred against the West Indies.
Afridi holds the record for most sixes in one-day internationals with 342, and is the only player to have hit more than 400 sixes across all three formats of the game.
