Shahid Afridi seeks cricket as the best route for revival of the relations between India and Pakistan

For years India and Pakistan are quite famous for their intense and entertaining rivalries on the cricket field which compelled the millions of cricket lovers in both the nations as well as the fans across the world to take the back seat and enjoy the exciting contest. But presently the arch-rivals does not hold the same kind of politics as well as the cricketing relations, which they used to share in the past. In the past five to six years, India and Pakistan have only been meeting each other in the contests organized by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and not in a bilateral series. Former Pakistani captain Shahid Afridi still feels that the relations between the two cricket playing nations can tend to change in future.

Politics should not play a part in sports

Afridi was recently seen captaining one of the two teams in a recent innovation, the St. Moritz Ice Cricket League in Switzerland. Former Pakistani cricketers including the likes of Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar and many players from across the globe were part of Afridi’s team. While his rival team in the competition was led by former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag, the team also included many of the former Indian cricketers like Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan, Ramesh Powar, Ajit Agarkar and Joginder Sharma in their line-up. The entire setup and combinations of the two teams displayed a lot of renewal factors of India-Pakistan rivalry, taking a shift from the depleted political conspiracies between the two countries.

“Due to lack of international cricket between the two countries, we now play either in the ICC tournaments or the events such as Ice Cricket. I believe politics should be kept away from sports. It should rather be used as a tool to improve relations between the countries. Sport is something which can play a big role in bringing peace,” said Afridi in a conversation with Wisden India.

India and Pakistan should be playing each other more often

The former Pakistani cricketer was very happy to meet and once again play the game with many of the former Indian cricketers present at the event. He also feels that India and Pakistan should now also be playing each other more often in international cricket.

“It was nice to meet and play with players from India after a long time. That was something very positive about the tournament and I think it should continue. Both countries should also be playing international cricket against each other,” added the former Pakistani skipper.