Our journey to the cup wasn't very straight forward. We had to beat the teams to beat in the world cup to get up there. Australia. Pakistan. Sri Lanka.
Many of us were extremely pleased with what Pakistan's bad boy turned hero Shaheed Afridi had to say about his experience playing at Mohali during the presentation ceremony. He was cheered by the crowd - perhaps as much as MSD. We were happy.
What came a few days later, shocked people on both sides of the border. "In my opinion, if I have to tell the truth, they (Indians) will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don't think they have the large and clean hearts that Allah has given us," Afridi said during a talk show on Samaa news channel when he was asked about relations between the two countries.
"It is a very difficult thing for us to live with them (Indians) or to have long-term relationship with them. Nothing will come out of talks. See how many times in the past 60 years we have had friendship and then how many times things have gone bad," he said as the audience in the TV channel's studio applauded him repeatedly.
Afridi has to his disposal a country of loyal followers. He has an enormous following in India as well. Given the sour relations between the two countries, and the fact that a new series of talks had just begun, one would expect the Pakistani captain to be as mature as he was on the pitch while captaining the team to the Semis. It shows that maturity on the pitch does not translate into maturity off it.
All it would take is one positive statement. What did he have to lose in it? Would you ever expect Sachin Tendulkar to talk like that? I would be shocked if he would because I look at him with more respect than just a cricketing legend.
Giving trash to the Indian media was fine. All of us would run to back Afridi up for that. But why the religion card? Aren’t our leaders enough to play the religion card? People listen to you Afridi, don’t humiliate yourself.
#isn'tsportareligion?
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