On Friday (October 22), former Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar courted controversy after he confessed to bowling a ‘deadly beamer’ to Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the infamous Faisalabad Test match between India and Pakistan in 2006. He made the contentious comment during a talk show on Sports Tak.
The development came ahead of the much-anticipated T20 match between the two countries, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday (October 24). At about 17 minutes and 30 seconds into the programme, Akhtar recounted how his teammate suggested that he bowl a ‘beamer’ on the face of Harbajan Singh during the fourth match in the 2010 Asia Cup. It must be mentioned that Singh had hit the ace fast bowler for a six and bruised his ego.
Shoaib Akhtar then narrated how he had once deliberately tried to injure Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the 2006 Faisalabad Test match. He confessed, “I had made the same mistake with Dhoni in Faisalabad. I had thrown a beamer at him intentionally. Dhoni is such a nice guy and I respect him. I felt very bad about it. Yes, he is a good player who hit me for a few runs. Why did I decide to attack him (with a beamer)? If the ball would have hit Dhoni, he would have been grievously hurt (do-teen-paanch) in 2005 itself.”
During the second innings of the India-Pakistan match, MS Dhoni posted a mammoth personal score of 148 runs on the board. His innings included a total of 19 fours and 4 sixes. After being brutally hammered by MS Dhoni during the session, an agitated Shoaib Akthar vowed to hurt the Indian batsman-wicketkeeper gravely. The footage of the incident has been shared by Cricket Cloud on their Youtube channel. At about 3:58 seconds into the video, Akhtar could be seen throwing a deadly beamer at MS Dhoni at about 156km/hour speed. The Indian cricketer was fortunate enough to dodge it and escape unhurt.
It must be mentioned that bowling a beamer is illegal during a cricket match. In the said delivery, the ball does not bounce and is tossed high by the bowler. Such a delivery has the chance of causing fatal head and facial injuries to a batsman. While most of such beamers are delivered mistakenly, Shoaik Akhtar did it intentionally despite being fully aware of the possible consequences. A no-ball is awarded and the bowler gets a warning from the umpire. On repeating the same offence during the match, he can be barred from bowling in the rest of the match.
Shoaib Akhtar and his support for the Two nation theory
During the programme, Shoaib Akhtar also endorsed the bigoted ‘Two nation theory’, which ultimately led to the genocide of Hindus and the partition of India. It was first promulgated by Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University. The theory asserted that Muslims and Hindus form two separate nations that cannot coexist peacefully in one country.
The ace fast bowler had remarked, “I will not go deep into it. From the two-nation theory until now, there is a long history. We believe in the two-nation theory, I believe in it. We have an ideology. Ie we start talking about it, then it will go very far.”
