On Friday (19th October), former Indian cricketer turned Commentator and Cricket Analyst Irfan Pathan revealed that he was attacked with an iron nail by a Pakistani fan in Pakistan’s Peshawar. He revealed this while commenting on the India-Bangladesh World Cup match today. He said that years ago when the Indian Cricket team had been to Peshawar, one of the Pakistani fans threw an iron nail at him which could have damaged his eyes.
Irfan made these revelations amid the ongoing India-Bangladesh Asia World Cup match in Pune. This is after his co-commentator asked him about his opinion about the off-field controversy that Pakistan Cricket team’s management has raked after the recent India-Pakistan match in Ahmedabad.
“Does off-field controversy impact team performance or their morale?” the co-commentator asked to which Irfan replied saying that he was in a Peshawar match where he was performing well, and Team India was performing well. Then one Pakistani fan threw a keel (iron nail) at him and it hit his face.
He said, “Peshawar me ham khelne gaye the, tab ek Pakistani fan ne meri aankh k niche keel mardi thi. Lekin hamne iss baat ka batangad ni banaya. Dus minute game ruki, sab aye, aur uske baad hum sabne decide kiya ki achcha tour chal raha hai, chalne dete hai.” (We were playing a game in Peshawar, when a fan threw a nail at me, which struck me under my eye. I could have gotten seriously injured. The match was halted for 10 minutes, but we did not pay any heed to it as we were playing good cricket).
Irfan Pathan said, “The attack barely missed my eye and it could have damaged my eye. The match was discontinued for almost 10 minutes but the Indian team management didn’t escalate it. We yet praised their hospitality. I never talked about it. We thought it was important to maintain peace and then why pay so much attention to what one of the fans has done. I could have lost my eye. But I never discussed it,” Pathan could be heard saying.
He then added that Pakistan should stop making issues of crowd behaviour in India.
This comes days after some Pakistani social media trolls said that Ahmedabad was unfit to host an ICC World Cup match because the spectators did not exhibit sportsmanlike qualities and ‘criticized’ a few Pakistani players during the match with their chants and gestures. That being said, the image trolls on social media have created is not at all accurate.
Irfan Khan was talking about the India-Pakistan match in Peshawar in Pakistan on 6 February 2006. India had scored 328 runs in 49.4 overs, but when Pakistan was batting, the match was cut short by 3 overs due to bad light. Pakistan won the match by scoring 311 runs as per the Duckworth-Lewis method. During the Pakistani innings, the match was interrupted by unruly behaviour by the crowd. A record of the match by ESPNCricInfo shows that when Pakistan was at 179/1 after 30 over, there was a crowd interruption.
Sachin Tendulkar had scored 100 in the match, while Salman Butt had scored 101. Batting at 3rd, Irfan Pathan had made 65 runs after the early exit of Virender Sehwag. While Pathan didn’t take any wicket in his 10 overs of bowling, he had given just 52 runs in the high-scoring match.
Apart from the crowd interruption which included the attack on Irfan Pathan disclosed now, the match had also become controversial because Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was declared out for ‘obstructing the field’, a provision rarely used. As he was declared out after the Indian team had appealed, Inzy had criticised the Rahul Dravid-led Indian team, saying the appeal was ‘unsportsmanlike’.
Fake videos were shared to establish anti-India agenda
On 14th October, India defeated Pakistan in the ICC World Cup match at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, by 7 wickets. The match in Ahmedabad not only witnessed Pakistan’s batting breakdown and India’s all-around splendor, but it also ignited a debate about the crowd’s conduct at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
At the toss, Pakistan captain Babar Azam is said to have received a boo as he prepared to offer his appraisal of the toss and pitch conditions. Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s team director, then made an unusual statement during the post-match press conference following Pakistan’s defeat by India. He mentioned the lack of Pakistani fans and said that the match felt more like a BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) event than an ICC (International Cricket Council) one.
Also, a few days after the match some fake, edited videos appeared on social media which claimed that the crowd at the Ahmedabad stadium raised slogans like, “Jab Mulle Kaate Jayenge, Ram Ram Chillayenge”.
As reported earlier, the videos were being shared to spread violence among communities. BJP leader Tajinder Pall Singh Bagga took cognizance of the videos and demanded strict action against those who posted these videos. The video was later taken down from the social media platform.
Notably, a lot of ‘secular liberal’ Indian elites were upset after the crowd at Ahmedabad Narendra Modi stadium was seen providing overwhelming support to the Indian team. While support for local players is common, Indian ‘secular liberals’ were particularly upset because some fans were chanting Jai Shri Ram in the vicinity of Pakistani player Md Rizwan.
However, though slogans of Jai Shri Ram were raised in the stadium, the particular slogan “Mulle Kaate Jayenge” was never raised. The videos regarding the same have been deliberately shared on social media to create controversy and incite people against India.
The Indian team was heckled twice in the past
Beyond the confines of the game, India and Pakistan’s rivalry in cricket reflects political and historical tensions between the two bordering nations. Millions of supporters from both sides avidly watch and support their teams as they battle it out on the cricket pitch, turning the match into more than just a sporting event. That being said, nothing the Ahmedabad crowd did qualifies as heckling.
There are two events when the crowd is believed to be heckling. The first is when a cricket player is physically assaulted by fans and the second one is when the team has to face racial and derogatory screams in an already tough atmosphere during away matches.
There had in fact been a few other incidents of this like involving Indian players on the receiving end. During India’s 1989 tour to Pakistan, one such unfortunate event had an angry fan attacking and ripping the then-Indian captain Kris Srikkanth’s t-shirt. The security measures implemented by the Pakistani authorities then sparked a number of concerns regarding the safety of Indian players in Pakistan.
Also, during the 2021 Sydney Test, the Indian team was subjected to racist taunts. On the fourth and final day of the exciting encounter, Mohammed Siraj, a fast bowler, complained to the on-field umpires, causing play to be suspended for a few minutes. On Day 3, the same thing happened, and after an investigation by Cricket Australia and the police, the perpetrators were taken into custody.
Today, Irfan Pathan’s revelation about the nail attack on him by a Pakistani fan becomes the third of its kind incident when the Indian cricketers have been attacked by the fans in away matches.