'Apne players ko sar pe charha liya' - Shahid Afridi's critical remark on comparison between India-Pakistan players

In sports, player comparisons are rather prevalent. However, the discussions frequently escalate into violent confrontations when these parallels are made between the players of two competing teams. In a panel discussion held in Melbourne prior to the India vs. Pakistan T20 World Cup 2022 game, Shahid Afridi strongly disagreed with Atul Wassan's comparisons of the players of India and Pakistan.

Wassan said that the Indian players have established their reputations by winning significant matches, but Afridi retorted that Wassan was exaggerating the importance of his team's players. Wassan emphasized how reliable players like KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya have been recently. However, Pakistani players, in contrast, have not been able to achieve such status.

Afridi, Wassan, and Kapil Dev were among those sharing their opinions on the Indian and Pakistani teams ahead of their T20 World Cup match on Samaa TV, where Wassan made the remark, to which Afridi replied:

“Mujhe ek deja vu wali feeling ho rahi thi. Kuch mahine phele bhi discuss kar rahe the ki Indian team main bare bare naam hai - Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul. Aur yeh bare naam isliye hai kyunki kuch saalo se innhone consistent performances diye hai. Isliye world main bhi rating hai. Compared to Pakistan cricketers, unhone bhi kiya hai, par India team ke against dekha jae toh utne bare, utne globally nehi hai.” (I’m having a Déjà vu. A few months back we were discussing that there are big names in the Indian team like Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul. These are big names because they’ve consistently performed over the years. That’s why they have a rating in the world. Pakistan cricketers have also done well but they are not as big and global as the Indian players).

Rizwan has performed many times now, he should get ratings as well: Afridi

“Rizwan ne ek match jitaya, Nawaz ne bhi ek match jitaya, but ek match jitwane se koi bare player nehi ban jaate. Hardik ko bhi highly rate karte he kyunki woh lagatar bowling se bhi jitwaya hai, batting se bhi. Rizwan bara naam nehi lag rahe the kyunki unhone India ke khilaf matche nehi jitwaye the. Par abhi woh 3-4 bar perform kiya hai, toh unko bhi rating milna chaiye,” he added. (Rizwan won a game for us, Nawaz did that too, but winning a match does not make them a big player. Hardik has also been rated highly because he has consistently won games for India by bowling, even by batting. Rizwan wasn’t a big name because he hadn’t won games for the team against India. But now that he has performed multiple times, he should get ratings as well).

After commenting on the comparisons between players of the two rival sides, Afridi hit back at Atul Wassan for his remarks and made a bold remark as he added-

“Abhi jo baat kar rahe they woh samaj nehi ayi. Apne players ko sar pe charha liya. Pakistan players, jo ICC Ranking main No.1, 2 he unko bilkul ignore kardiya.” (I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about right now. They have created a big hype about their players, and have ignored the Pakistani players who are ranked at the No. 1 and No. 2 positions)