On Thursday (January 19), former Pakistani cricketer Basit Ali recounted how he would sledge all Indian players, with the exception of ex-Indian cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin.
He made the revelation during a live interaction with the latter on his Youtube channel. “Before every India match, I was given the responsibility to sledge the Indian players,” Basit Ali said.
“I was told to disturb Sachin Tendulkar, Ajay Jadeja, Navjot Sidhu, Vinod Kambli, but the moment Azhar bhai’s name used to come, the entire team unanimously said no would disturb Azhar bhai,” he emphasised.
“Be it Wasim Akram bhai, Salim Malik, Rashid Latif, Inzmam-ul-Haq and Waqar Younis, they would no dare to sledge Azhar bhai. I don’t think any Pakistan player ever insulted Azhar bhai…I don’t have words to describe the amount of respect we used to have for Azhar bhai in our dressing room,” he added.
While Basit Ali claimed that the reason to not sledge his co-religionist was out of respect, Pakistani players have time and again invoked religion into the gentlemen’s sport and normalised communal bigotry.
Old video of ex-Pakistani cricketer Saeed Anwar goes viral
Earlier, a video of former Pakistani cricketer Saeed Anwar, narrating stories of Islamic conversions of non-Muslims, went viral on social media.
In the said video, he was heard saying, “Mashallah, did you see how many people accepted Islam during the World cup? Allah has made it possible. (South African cricketer) Hashim Amla has made many people convert to Islam. Shahid Afridi knows it well.”
“An entire Hindu family became Muslim because of Hashim Amla. Mohammed Yousuf (earlier Yousuf Youhana) became the path to several conversions to Islam. Allah has bestowed all of you with talent…Do the work of Prophet Muhammad,” Saeed Anwar gloated.
The original video was first uploaded on the Youtube channel ‘The Preachers of Islam Official’ on December 16, 2022. The event appears to be the inauguration ceremony of a T10 league ‘Mega Stars League (MSL)’ that was launched by Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi last year.
