Kolkata: If his lies after his team Peshawar Zalmi won the Pakistan Super League (PSL) were not enough, Javed Afridi, who owns the team, now prays that the West Indian cricketer Darren Sammy converts to Islam. It only happens in Pakistan. And a country that is afflicted with the presence of hardliners, there is one Afridi who vindicates the parochial notions that the country believes in.
Afridi is on a mission – a mission to amuse people with all his statements. “I pray that he accepts Islam as his religion. He has complete knowledge and the way he is reading about Islam, I think it’s a big achievement. For me, for my whole team, it is a big thing,” says Afridi on Sammy in a video which is going viral all over the internet.
He claims that due to his efforts, he has managed to convince Sammy to study Islam and he prays that he switches to it. Needless to say that Sammy has immense faith in Afridi as he was one of the first players to say yes to play in Lahore in the PSL final claiming that he would follow Afridi wherever he took him. Sammy was chosen as the skipper of the Peshawar Zalmi which he guided to win the PSL at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
Afridi has a habit of duping the media. He went on record saying that Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan, the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL) agreed to play a series against his team. This was later refuted by the CEO of KKR. At a time when the franchise should be cherishing and celebrating, such vague statements create controversies. A message for Afridi: Well your team may have won the PSL, but you, with your words are bringing a bad name to your set up. Speak the truth and don’t try to make headlines with bags of lies.
(With inputs from The Express Tribune)