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The only thing going for Shahid Afridi is the Muslim identity he shares with the Kashmiri. Otherwise, he is lost Pashtun in the Valley like his ‘Pashtun Idol’ Imran Khan is. At least Nawaz Sharif can lay claim to be Kashmiri. These two washed out skippers should take a break and vacation with their wives. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek take on the former Pakistani cricket captain, for Different Truths.
Shahid Afridi is now ‘Shaheed Afridi’ and along with other Pakistanis out of favour in Dubai. His cricketing career over, the man with the heavy bat is batting for terrorism and terrorists. Maybe he wants to be a politician, walk in the footsteps of marriage-machine Imran Khan. This even as top Dubai Police official Lt. General Dhahi Khalfan wondered why Pakistanis are “smugglers” and “disrupters” while Indians are “disciplined?”
Both Shahid and Imran have captained the Pakistan cricket team and Imran Khan has been at sea acting the politician. Maybe that is why cricket captains are called ‘skipper’. Images of Shahid Afridi show him shooting ‘teetar’ or the partridge, the heavy bird which is meat for hunters from the UAE on safari in Pakistan.
The other day, Afridi turned dead partridge, shooting off at the mouth, tweeting his “anguish” at the “appalling and worrisome” situation in “Indian Occupied Kashmir”. Within minutes, the ‘IOK’ barb rained back on him and it looked like the umpires would have to call playoff because of bad weather.
You see, Afridi’s below the belt shot fell well out of Pakistan’s boundary. His meaty bat had the power to rile even his fans in India. Suddenly, he was not even 12th Man in the eyes of Indians. Afridi wanted the United Nations to butt in and stop the Indian Army from gunning down Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in ‘Indian Occupied Kashmir’. “Innocents are being shot down by oppressive regime to clamp voice of self-determination & independence,” the skipper at sea tweeted.
Just hours before his tweet this came from the UN: “The Secretary-General is, indeed, very concerned about the situation that we’ve seen in Jammu and Kashmir. He would like to remind that the Member States are responsible under the international humanitarian law to protect civilians.”
The Indian side batting was quite serious in its response, Gambhir! The Gautam who is not Buddha tweeted: “Media called me for reaction @SAfridiOfficial tweet on OUR Kashmir & @UN. What is there to say? Afridi is only looking for @UN which in his retarded mind means UNDER NINETEEN, his bracket. Media can relax, @SAfridiOfficial celebrating a dismissal off a no-ball!!”
In his levity on which he has no control, Gambhir rallied Indians but Afridi was not about to back down. He told an Indian news channel that he was “telling the truth” as he saw it. Come to think of it, Indians should not cry about “our” Kashmir referred to as ‘Indian Occupied Kashmir’. Don’t we call “their” part of Kashmir, ‘Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’?
IOK and POK are alphabet soups the Kashmiri is in. The only thing going for Afridi is the Muslim identity he shares with the Kashmiri. Otherwise, he is lost Pashtun in the Valley like his ‘Pashtun Idol’ Imran Khan is. At least Nawaz Sharif can lay claim to be Kashmiri. These two washed out skippers should take a break and vacation with their wives.
Rest assured Imran and Shahid will not be the ones to solve the Kashmir dispute. This is not cricket and in any case, Pakistanis are not allowed to take to the crease in India. The IPL is out of bounds for Pakistani cricketers and even if Virat Kohli tweets occasionally his praise for Pakistani cricketers, even that will not change the rules of the game. The IPL third umpire will always rule Pakistani cricket players out!
Meanwhile, Afridi can run his fingers through his beard and eat his moustache, support terror or carry water for LeT chief Hafiz Saeed. Nothing is going to change the “situation” in ‘IOK’ unless Pakistan vacates ‘POK’.
Pakistani cricketers go through the same school system that produced Hafiz Saeed and the Pakistani army generals. In Pakistani school textbooks, “our” Kashmir is printed “Indian Occupied Kashmir” and impressionable minds carry their learning to the grave.
Shahid Afridi and Imran Khan, while they are railing against India at home and abroad, should look at what a top Dubai Police official tweeted about Pakistanis in general. Head of General Security in Dubai Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan wondered, “How come Indians are disciplined while disruption, crime, and smuggling are prevalent in the Pakistani community?” UAEviral.com translated and quoted the Dubai General: “Pakistanis pose a dangerous threat to gulf societies because the drugs they bring in to our countries. We must impose strict procedures at the entrances (to our countries).” Dhahi Khalfan advised his countrymen not to employ Pakistanis. And that applies to Imran Khan and Shahid Afridi, skippers at sea.
Aditya Aamir
©IPA Service
Photo from the Internet
