The charming Pakistan cricket captain has been pilloried for speaking his mind, opening his heart rather, when in India for the World T20. As an old India hand who always felt comfortable here, and as an early IPL player, Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi may have been speaking also as an ambassador of his sport. Belonging to the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns from Khyber Agency, Afridi may have become inured to controversies.
This storm too will pass, but not without leaving a scar in the mind of a man who knows what it is to be living in the Pakistan milieu dominated by mullahs, politicians and the Army. Afridi’s frank remarks have also been pounced upon by Javed Miandad, a sambandhi of Dawood Ibrahim. Miandad may even have a point about Indian cricket not having supported Pakistan cricket in the last five years or so. But then he should realise — as much as Afridi — that in the world of India-Pakistan ties there is really no such thing as absolute truth.
Pakistan cricket is isolated today because of terrorism having spread its tentacles to the sport in 2009 when Sri Lankan cricketers were targeted in Lahore. Since then cricketing ties have become rare, with state-sponsored Pakistan terror being an intense divider. The reactions to free speech in India may have been clouded by a few controversies, but the essential difference between India and Pakistan is to do with freedom. Afridi felt he was free to speak his mind in India, which probably proves the point.
