Adding fuel to the fire, former Pakistan leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed has made shocking revelations regarding West Indies players telling him about India deliberately losing their match against England in the 2019 ODI World Cup encounter.
Ahmed, who was working with the West Indies squad as the spin consultant, revealed that the likes of Andre Russell, Chris Gayle and skipper Jason Holder, said the same.
“I was working with the West Indies squad at last year’s World Cup. After India’s loss to England, Jason Holder, Chris Gayle and Andre Russell said to me, Mushy, India didn’t want to see Pakistan qualify for the semi-finals,” Ahmed told ARY News.
Earlier, England’s star all-rounder, Ben Stokes made some interesting remarks about the Indian batting lineup’s intent to chase down a score 330+ during the high octane clash at Edgbaston.
Stokes made the revelation in his soon to be published autobiography, ‘Ben Stokes on Fire’. To which, Pakistan media caused quite a furore by misquoting Stokes, claiming India lost the match deliberately to eliminate Pakistan.
Former cricketer Sikander Bhakt reshared the video of him stating the same. It was only recently when the England all-rounder took a dig at the speculations, tagging them as ‘clickbait’ and ‘twisting of words’.
On investigation, IANS found Stokes proved to be accurate and did not, on any occasion, mention about India deliberately losing the match to eliminate Pakistan out of the competition.
However, Stokes did express his surprise at MS Dhoni, and Kedar Jadhav did not go for the jugular at the backend of the game, despite wickets in hand.
Additionally, the Englishman used words such as bizarre, and mystifying to explain the partnership between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
Further in the book, the swashbuckling left-hander predicted that it would not be a practical approach in the future as it affects the new batsmen coming in.
