The name of former Pakistan all-rounder, Shahid Afridi, is synonymous to creating controversy. This time around, Afridi flared the Indian cricketing fraternity through his inflammatory speech delivered to army and civilians during his visit to Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
After speaking ill of the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and his political ideologies, Afridi garnered a lot of hatred on Twitter.
Even prominent Indian names such as Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh were not spared due to their involvement with Afridi’s humanitarian causes.
In reply, the likes of Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan, and Gautam Gambhir joined Bhajji and Yuvi with their scathing response to Afridi on Twitter. The cricketers shamed Afridi for his comments by saying that Kashmir will always be an integral part of India.
Now, even Indian captain Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma slammed Afridi for spreading hatred and negativity.
Sharma stated that no one in the Indian team takes Afridi seriously, now or even during his playing days. Further, the coach contrasted the stark difference between the players in India and Pakistan.
“Nobody in Indian cricket team takes him seriously. He was not even taken seriously when he was playing cricket. And he doesn’t deserve to because talking like this is not acceptable at any stage. Indian cricketers are sober and they don’t talk like this,” Sharma told Republic TV.
Also, Rajkumar claimed that Afridi is not that relevant to Indian cricketers and Kohli never mentions his name due to the same reason.
“They stand for their country but never abuse any other country or their PM. I think Shahid Afridi needs to learn a lot. He is a very negative sort of guy. Virat Kohli never talks about Shahid, he is not that important that he should be talked about,” he added.
In conclusion, the coach predicted about Afridi’s ambition to join politics. And that, him hurling abuses to India would garner attention within the public in Pakistan.
“I think Afridi wants to come in politics. Whosoever criticizes or abuses India becomes famous in Pakistan. It is their mentality. Shahid Afridi is moving in that direction. I don’t think anybody will take him seriously from now on,” Sharma signed off.
