Afridi honoured to lead World XI
Power-packed West Indies team to face them in exhibition match at Lord’s today
Agalaxy of former and current stars will be in action at the iconic Lord’s today to play an exhibition match between the ICC World XI and the West Indies and help raise funds for the refurbishment of five cricket stadia in the Caribbeans that were damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.
Former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi has been named to lead the World XI after England’s limited overs captain Eoin Morgan sustained a broken finger during a domestic match.
“It’s a great honour to be leading the ICC World XI side, that too for such a good cause. I’m sure all the players from either side are looking forward to the match with great enthusiasm and people will get to see some high-quality cricket on Thursday,” Afridi said on Twitter.
The World XI side, in fact, has had more than a few changes since being formally announced.
The squad still wears an extremely strong look. Iqbal, Billings, Karthik, Ronchi and Malek, with Afridi and Perera makes for a mouth-watering batting line-up.
Carlos Brathwaite, who hit Ben Stokes for four successive sixes to win the Windies the last ICC World T20 at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens in April 2016, is the captain of the Windies side, and the squad has some fantastic T20 talent in their midst. T20 stars Chris Gayle, Andre Russell, Evin Lewis and Badree are the big names in Brathwaite’s line-up, while in Marlon Samuels, Andre Fletcher, Rovman Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Kesrick Williams and others, there’s a lot of firepower.