Former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi, known for his outspokenness, made yet another boisterous statement claiming Pakistan’s superiority over India in the cricketing sphere.
Afridi said that the spectacle of dominance Pakistan exhibited whenever they encountered India was too hot to handle for the arch-rivals. Indian players often asked for forgiveness from Pakistan after losing the match.
For a career spanning across two decades, Afridi accumulated 1524 runs in 67 ODIs and 709 runs from eight Tests against India. He further remarked that he liked playing the high-pressure match against opponents like India and Australia.
“I have always enjoyed India. Unhe to theek-thaak mara hai humne. Itna mara hai unhe ki match ke baad maafiyan mangi hai unhone. (We’ve thrashed them a lot. I believe we’ve beaten them so much that they used to ask us for forgiveness after the match). I have enjoyed a lot playing against India and Australia, you have more pressure. They are good teams, big teams. Going and performing in their conditions is the big thing,” Afridi said on the Cricast show on YouTube.
Although Pakistan boasts of superior winning records against India, the statistics don’t always tell a full story. The supremacy Pakistan enjoys in the head-to-head records is primarily based on their performance in the decade of 80s and 90s. Those were the decades when Pakistan’s cricketing machine was operating at the peak of their power.
Looking further since Afridi’s debut in the late 90s, India reserve the bragging rights with a winning record of 51-47 across all formats, including an astounding 7-0 scoreline in the ICC Cricket World Cup.
Further, Afridi also talked about the favourite innings of his career.
“My most memorable inning was the 141 against India, that too in India. I was not going on that trip; they were not taking me. Wasim Bhai and the chief selector that time supported me a lot. It was a very difficult tour and that inning was very important,” Afridi added.
