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It was fantastic to see India win the T20 World Cup last night. For once they played to their full potential. And of course beating Pakistan was the icing on the cake.

However, one event after the match was really unnerving and pissed me off no end.

When Shastri, as the compere of the prize award ceremony invited Shoaib Malik to come over as the losing captain and say a few words, the Pakistani captain launched into a short diatribe about how his team had disappointed the Muslims all over the world.

What the fuck ?? I can understand if he said that his team had let down Pakistanis the world over but what is this bullshit about his team about letting down the Muslims of the world.

The Pakistani team has in recent times worn their religion on their sleeves. There have been many instance of them kissing the pitch etc when they win matches…as if praying in the direction of Mecca. No Pakistani cricketer especially Inzamam “Aloo” Haq can say a sentence without starting or ending it with an invocation to God, The Almighty Allah.

If you did not catch what I am talking about check out this video around the 22:00 minute mark. I frankly this this is sick. What do you think?

UPDATE

Seems that I am not the only one pissed off and blogging about this.

The Greatbong has this to say

Dear Shoaib Malik. Firstly you are a very good captain and your English is better than your predecessors. But dude, you seriously need to understand that your team’s achievements or lack of them in this case has got nothing to do with the Muslims of the world, as you so sagaciously pointed out in your presentation speech. I understand the pan-Islamic sentiment that has been fed into your brain but here’s the deal. Look around. See the smiling Pathan brothers there—-one of whom strangled your team’s progress in the middle overs and the other led a rousing charge on your opening bowler. Tell you what, they also belong to the “Muslims of the world” and yet are deliriously happy at your defeat. Why wouldnt they? They caused it.

Go on over to read his excellent (as always) post.

UPDATE 2

Sharique at IndianMuslims writes an excellent post on the same topic.

I found it extremely disturbing, to say the least. How justified is to associate the whole Muslim world with the cricket team of Pakistan? As a matter of fact this generalization is something very common among Pakistanis. They claimed to have acquired Nuclear weapon to protect the Muslim world when the first testing took place immediately after India tested its nuke. The basis being the only Muslim country to have acquired nuclear capability. The same logic was extended to cricket, Pakistan being the strongest among Muslim countries.

Read further over here