Mumbai: So if Shahid Afridi was born in 1975; he made his Pakistan debut at the age of 21, and he made his Test debut at the age of 23. Afridi retired from international cricket at the age of 43, he played his last ODI at the age of 40, at the moment he is 44.
Age is just a number. Cricket statisticians differ on changing Afridi's records.
"I am inclined to change his birth year to 1975 on the basis of this. He will thus be removed from several age records, which is only fair", a renowned Australian statistician Ric Finlay says exclusively.
"It won’t be tedious at all for digital records, since adjusting his date of birth will automatically flow through to any age records instantaneously, eg websites, computer databases. The only problem will be hard-copy, printed records, which will now be wrong - nothing can be done about that...", he further added.
However, another cricket statistician from South Africa, Andrew Samson wants the date of birth be announced by the player and not only the birth year to amend his records.
Speaking exclusively, he said, "I see that he says he was born in 1975. Unless we have the actual date of birth we can’t change anything. All we can do is put a note under his biographical details to the effect that he says he was born in 1975".
Indian statistician, Sudhir Vaidya is also not ready to change Afridi's records.
"Whatever action Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), if want to take on Shahid Afridi (for hiding the age all these years and playing the Under-19 tournament), will have no bearing on any of the records created by him in any of the three formats played by him. All his records will remain in tact or untouched", he says.
"If the PCB tries to deface Afridi's records or statistics, PCB will have to deface Afridi's colleague or partner's record as well. That is why I feel that Afridi's or for that matter his colleague's records will remain untouched or in tact. If at all Afridi is likely to be punished in any manner his records and statistics will have no bearing on his achievements by way of punishment", he added.
