Mumbai: Pakistan veteran cricketer Shahid Afridi taunted former Australian cricketer Ian Chappell after Pakistan beat Australia by six wickets in the second one-day international at Melbourne, on Sunday.
Chappell had earlier criticised Pakistan’s inability to play competitive cricket against Australia Down Under and suggested the team to either stop playing poor cricket or just stay at home.
"Pakistan have now lost 12 Test matches on the trot in Australia, and somebody's got to give them a kick up the bum. Cricket Australia have got to start saying 'listen if things don't improve, we will stop with the invites'," the Express Tribune quoted Chappell, as saying.
Sunday’s victory against Australia was Pakistan’s first ODI victory on Australian soil in the last 12 years.
The mercurial all-rounder took to twitter to take a dig at Chappell. Afridi tweeted: “Shabash Pakistan, great captaincy and inns Hafeez, Well done JK, Malik, Did you watch Ian Chappell?”
Before Afridi, Test Captain Misbah-ul-Haq had criticised Chappell for his comments. Writing in his column for cricket.com.au, Misbah hit back at Chappell and said, "I believe those comments were uncalled for and unbecoming to someone who has a vast experience of playing and watching cricket. The comments do not make any sense or suit a cricketer of his stature."
"Australia themselves have been on the losing side in the recent away tours. They were clean swept by a Sri Lanka side that did not have Mahela Jayawardena or Kumar Sangakkara and some of their players didn't even have 10 Tests to their names," he said.
"Then Australia lost the one-day international series 0-5 in South Africa. In the recent past they have been whitewashed by us in the UAE and in India. If we apply Chappell's comments to Australia, does that mean if they continue to get whitewashed on the subcontinent on a regular basis then they should also not travel there?"
"And if Australia does not travel to Asia or the Asian teams do no travel to Australia then how are they going to improve?" he asked.
