Shahid Afridi was in a murderous mood as he bludgeoned the Indian bowlers to all parts of the ground in a fierce display of hitting in the second Limited Overs International in Rawalpindi on Tuesday.
Recalled after a year in the wilderness, Afridi smote 80 runs off 56 balls to get the hosts off to a blazing start.
What was remarkable about the knock was the ease with which Afridi spanked the Indian bowlers over the boundary ropes time and again, hitting as many as 10 fours and four sixes. This means Afridi scored exactly 80 per cent of his runs in boundaries.
This is the sixth highest percentage of boundary shots in an innings by an opposition batsman (with a minimum qualification of 50 runs) in all the 558 ODIs played by India till date.
The accompanying table lists all batsmen making 75 per cent or more of their runs in boundaries in an innings of 50 or more:
% | Runs | 4s | 6s | Out of | Batsman | Country | Venue | Date |
88.24 | 60 | 15 | 0 | 68 | C M Spearman | New Zealand | Rajkot | 5 Nov 99 |
87.50 | 70 | 10 | 5 | 80 | W W Hinds | West Indies | Baroda IPCL | 18 Nov 02 |
84.85 | 56 | 14 | 0 | 66 | P A de Silva | Sri Lanka | Calcutta | 13 Mar 96 |
83.33 | 60 | 12 | 2 | 72 | C H Gayle | West Indies | Rajkot | 12 Nov 02 |
82.14 | 46 | 10 | 1 | 56* | D A Marillier | Zimbabwe | Faridabad | 7 Mar 02 |
80.00 | 48 | 9 | 2 | 60 | Ijaz Ahmed | Pakistan | Toronto | 21 Sep 97 |
80.00 | 64 | 10 | 4 | 80 | Shahid Afridi | Pakistan | Rawalpindi | 16 Mar 04 |
78.38 | 58 | 13 | 1 | 74 | H H Gibbs | South Africa | Nagpur | 19 Mar 00 |
78.12 | 50 | 11 | 1 | 64 | I V A Richards | West Indies | Berbice | 29 Mar 03 |
76.71 | 56 | 11 | 2 | 73 | A Symonds | Australia | Perth | 1 Feb 04 |
76.36 | 42 | 9 | 1 | 55 | Aamir Sohail | Pakistan | Bangalore | 9 Mar 96 |
75.76 | 50 | 11 | 1 | 66 | K C Sangakkara | Sri Lanka | Bristol | 11 Jul 02 |
75.41 | 46 | 10 | 1 | 61 | A C Gilchrist | Australia | Kochi | 1 Apr 98 |