Awesome Afridi dominates in comeback match

Pakistan 224/9 (50.0 overs)
West Indies 98 (41.0 overs)
Pakistan won by 126 runs

After an absence in the Pakistani team until their tour to South Africa earlier this year, Shahid Afridi returned to dominate against the West Indies. He scored a quickfire 76 with the bat including 54 runs in boundaries which steered Pakistan to a score of 224/9. The West Indies would have been confident of chasing the moderate target, however Afridi snuffed their hopes with an incredible 7/12 - which is in fact the second best bowling figures in ODI history. With 3 maidens and an economy rate of 1.33, Afridi's bowling was simply remarkable. The West Indies were flattened for 98 and were forced to linger away for 41 overs.

Amazingly it was the first time Afridi took a wicket in ODI's since playing Australia in the UAE last year. It was also his first five wicket haul in 21 matches going back around 18 months to the ODI against Afghanistan. I'm sure all Pakistan fans will be hoping for this to be the beginning of some consistent form from Afridi. He is an incredibly dangerous player when he's on but he's gone through some long patches of poor form in his career, and at 33, he wouldn't want to be having too many of those stretches again.

Nonetheless his performance in the 1st ODI was amazing, and probably one of the best all-round performance in an ODI ever. Hopefully he will be able to back it up in the next ODI starting tonight which if so will put Pakistan in a strong position to take a 2-0 lead in this 5 match series.