Shahid Afridi the Opener?

I just ran Shahid Afridi through Statsguru on Cricinfo, and came up with an interesting statistic. Afridi in a recent interview on Cricinfo said he wanted to open, and then today Woolmer said the same thing about Afridi potentially opening.

If you look at Afridi's statistics, not really overwhelming. 237 matches at 23.17 an innings. 4 100s, 27 50s, with a strike rate of 87. What is really interesting though, is if you look at Afridi's stats as an opener, thats where things get interesting.

141 matches as an opener, about 60% of his matches. Yet, it is as an opener that Afridi has scored fully 70% of his almost 5000 runs. Some might say, well that is just lead-time bias, because as an opener Afridi has more overs at his disposal. Well, I can concede that but what about the fact that 3 of Afridi's 4 ODI centuries have come from the opening position? Or 22 of his 27 half-centuries have come from the opening positions? If that wasn't interesting enough, in matches that Pakistan have won, with Afridi opening, Afridi has scored at almost 32 an innings, while in the matches that Pakistan have won, with Afridi not opening, he has only scored at around 23 an innings.

I think maybe Afridi and Woolmer may know what they are talking about. Makes me wonder.