Asia Cup mess: Fomer Pakistan cricket team’s captain Shahid Afridi tells Indian PM Narendra Modi, ‘Let cricket happen’ Afridi spoke at a press conference during the Legends League Cricket in Doha, which is the capital of Qatar, and said the India board, BCCI, was the strongest. But of course, “with great power…” you get the drill; Afridi also advised the Indian team to “make more friends” and “not to make enemies”. Since the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, India has refused to play bilateral series with the neighbours. Since then, India and Pakistan have only faced each other at neutral venues in any cricketing contest.
Afridi also commented in Doha, “Just send a war on Indian cricketers and we will protect them with all our love :)” This point was further elaborated when the maverick all-rounder opined that it may not be a war era anymore and cricket diplomacy played a long way in improving the relations with other countries. Referring to the 2005 series, he added: Indian players have been respected from the beginning, just that they were also loved. The times when Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh go out to shop or eat in Pakistan and no shopkeeper wants them to pay and then the rebukes and disrespects they get over the border? Afridi said that he has not allowed it to go out of his place with a lot of Indian cricketers who had played with him as “two nations” and then that beauty. The team recalled an instance when the previous day Suresh Raina had gifted him a bat.
During the talk, Afridi also said something very important. Once Mithun quipped during a chat — not mentioning any names (a la Aidan Behave) — about how the Mumbai stickmen had warned the Pakistan cricket team. But instead, his team was set off to go to India.
Afridi’s comments came a few days before the all important Asian Cricket Council (ACC) meeting in Dubai. It holds importance as the Asia Cup 2023 will be played too. The ICC could consider this as well. In fact, ACC chairman Jay Shah had announced the Indian cricket team would not tour Pakistan for the Asia Cup last year, earlier than this pandemic, but because the Indian government deemed it an unsafe location for its cricketers. Pakistan had then said that if they are going to be deprived of their rights to host Asia Cup then Indian team which is a part of Asia Cup would have to play half of them in a neutral venue in UAE as ” we will not be willing to go for this kind of ‘exile’ to India”.
