Afridi leads Player of Tournament tally for his bowling exploits

Cape Town, Sep 22 (UNI) Pakistan's swashbuckling all-rounder Shahid Afridi has bowled his way to lead the Player of the Tournament chart at the ongoing Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa.

With his aggressive approach to batting and his penchant for hitting sixes, purists said his game would be ideally suited to the Twenty20 format, instead the 27-year-old all-rounder has been impressing the crowds in South Africa more for his bowling performances than with the willow in hand.

His tricky brand of leg-spin has proved very successful so far and he is currently the second-leading wicket-taker in the tournament with 11 scalp at a remarkable average of 12.18 and and economy rate of 6.70, considered as impressive in the nascent version.

Though Afridi has not put together any big innings with the bat, yet the 85 runs he has scored in the tournament so far have come at an express pace at a strike-rate of 212.50 runs per 100 balls faced.

Afridi is currently tops the ladder with seven points, followed by the trio of Australia's Stuart Clark, Morne Morkel of South Africa and Sanath Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka.

However, with the other two teams already knocked out, only leading Aussie pacer Clark can displace him at the top.

Meanwhile, other players who could catch Afridi for the award are Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken and Matthew Hayden of Australia; Craig McMillan and Daniel Vettori of New Zealand; his own team-mates Misbah-ul-Haq, Yunus Khan and Shoaib Malik; and Rohit Sharma and Yuvraj Singh of India.

UNI