Former Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar, whose entire career was focussed not on the quality of his bowling but in attempts to outrun racing vehicles, had launched a racist, hateful rant against the Afghan cricketers in a YouTube video.
A crucial match between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Afghanistan has nothing to lose but which Pakistan desperately needs to win to survive in the tournament, is underway today. Shoaib Akhtar had shared a video where he was seen deriding the Afghan players and even giving racist, hateful remarks against them.
https://twitter.com/nailainayat/status/1144947224243294215?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
In the video, Akhtar is seen saying that it is good that Afghani players have found ‘home grounds’ in Dehradun and Noida. He further states that India has invested a lot in training Afghani cricket players but what they could not teach them was ‘sense of maturity’.
Ironically, Akhtar, displaying an amazing lack of maturity himself, further states that if the ID cards of the team members of Afghanistan are checked, it may be found that many of them belong to Peshawar. He insinuated that Afghans are the refugees in Pakistan and they are going to be crushed tomorrow. He also stated that because the Afghan players may all be refugees from Peshawar, if a serious document check is performed, their team might get banned.
Akhtar’s racist rant against a neighbouring country was slammed by many on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/iopyne/status/1144822009874067456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/Mehr_Shah/status/1144879217382965250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
During today’s match, there was also a scuffle between the fans of Afghanistan and Pakistan at Leeds stadium. It is reported that an aeroplane with a flying slogan “Justice For Balochistan” was seen during the match. ICC has stated that