Former cricketer Shahid Afridi says Indian cricketers used to apologize from men in green shirts after losing the match.
He said Indian cricketers apologized on several occasions after losing the match to Pakistani players. Former cricketer expressed these views in a virtual interview with Cric Cast on YouTube. The player said that he enjoyed playing matches against the arch-rival. Afridi said that he enjoyed cricket matches the most in which Pakistan dominated India.
What Shahid Afridi said
“I have always enjoyed playing against India. I believe we’ve beaten them so much that they used to ask us for forgiveness after the match,” Afridi said.
Afridi said”I have enjoyed a lot playing against India and Australia, you have more pressure. They are big teams.”
He said that one of the memorable innings of his career is against India. He recalled his 141-runs knock in a Test match in Chennai in 1999.
Read more: Shahid Afridi’s comments on Kashmir & Modi irk Indian cricketers
Afridi stated, “My most memorable inning was the 141 against India (Chennai Test, 1999), that too in India,” revealed Afridi. “I was not going on that trip, they were not taking me. Wasim bhai and the chief selector that time supported me a lot. It was a very difficult tour and that inning was very important,” he added.
Shahid Afridi makes another controversial statement, says Indian cricket team used to ask forgiveness from Pakistan team after getting badly defeatedhttps://t.co/ntxIEo34q4
— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) July 5, 2020
India resents comment of Shahid Afridi on India players apologizing
His comments on Indian players stirred a reaction from the other side of the border. Indian social media users lambasted Pakistani player Shahid Afridi for passing controversial remarks on Indian players. They even trolled Pakistan and Shahid Afridi on his remarks.
Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra denied the comments of Shahid Afridi in his YouTube video.
https://twitter.com/AsYouNotWish/status/1278644979779289089?s=20
Chopra said: “Pakistan team used to be good at one point. It is still an okay team today. But there was a time when India used to play against Pakistan at Sharjah and the balance was tilted towards the neighboring nation. But it was not the ‘Afridi time’ that he is talking about.
Indian cricketer gives India-Pakistan stats
He said that cricketers like Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were the strength of Pakistan. They with their sheer talent beat India. But things changed drastically between the two teams by the time Shahid Afridi started his cricketing career. Things are imbalanced between the two teams even now.
He gave the stats between India and Pakistan at the time when Afridi played cricket. He said “we played 15 Tests, each of us has won 5 Tests each. In ODIs, you have won two more games than us. The stat is 41-39 in your favor in 82 games, so well done. But I doubt that anyone is going to ask for forgiveness for just losing two more games.
“But when you talk about T20I, the format in which you were really good, India lead the head-to-head contest by 7-1. Isn’t the story told backward? Maybe, he (Afridi) wanted to say something else, and he said something else. I am really surprised,” he further added.
He took a dig at Pakistan when he quoted the world cup records. Chopra said Shahid Afridi and the people of Pakistan always remember the win against India in Champion Trophy 2017 but they forget the records. “India’s dominance is of a different kind. When India travel to Australia, they beat Australia. When Pakistan travel to Australia, they lose by quite a fair margin. There is a lot of difference between the two teams at this time,” he further said.
Read more: Yuvraj Singh, Shahid Afridi call for Indo-Pak cricket series
The backlash from India on the remarks of Shahid Afridi is well anticipated. Lately, Pakistani cricketer is in the news for criticism on Indian armed forces and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the monstrous human rights violations in Indian Occupied Jammu Kashmir.
But Shahid Afridi has not provided further clarification of his comments on Indian cricketers apologizing to Pakistani players.