A left-arm quick who can fire inswingers at good pace is special and that is why Shaheen Afridi is an asset to Pakistan, asserted their bowling coach, Vernon Philander.

Of Shaheen’s three wickets against India on Sunday, the first two — wickets of Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul — came from inswinging deliveries.

“It’s always a wonderful asset to have left-arm pacers who can bowl with good pace and can swing it,” Philander said.

“What we have identified as his strength is to swing it at high pace. Of course, what we need to also highlight are the lines he bowled, which I think were fantastic.

“You need to keep encouraging him to do what he has been doing. For a long time, left-arm quicks have probably lost that inswinging ball… But Shaheen’s such a good exponent of that inswinging yorker or inswinging ball to the right-handed batsmen,” Philander, who took 224 wickets in 64 Tests for South Africa, said.

Having said that, consistency, which has been a major issue for the Pakistan team over the years, will be the key if the bowlers are to come up with more such fascinating stuff, Philander emphasised.

“We have to give them (bowlers) the freedom to be able to strike. Consistency does come into play, while we do want to encourage the guys to keep being positive,” the former pacer said.

As Pakistan’s bowling coach, Philander, 36, has already set his goal. “I’ve been watching the local T20 tournament in Pakistan as well, and there’s still a lot of good, quality seam bowlers in the system.

“So it really excites me to be working with them and, hopefully, I can take them a step higher in their careers.”