Pakistani Cricketers Mix Sport with Religion Again

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

Published

7 comments

  1. Shoaib’s obviously ( and possibly quite rightly) believes that his inlaws in Hyderabad, A.P must be praying for him. He’s just not very smart or eloquent. Maybe his (formerly Indian) wife can teach him how to say what he means.

  2. LOL…think after losing to India, Australian cricket captain saying, “We let down all the Christians all over the world because we lost against India.” See, how funny it sounds. That’s how Pakistani captain sounded.

    funniest thing is that muslims all over the world do not really give any kind of shit about cricket….it’s only south-asians, who love cricket. It has nothing to do with religion or whatever. Cricket is not even a “Muslim” sport. Is there even anything called “Muslim” sport? I don’t know. Let’s ask Pakistani cricketeres.

    Pakistan played good in my opinion. They didn’t let down anyone. They gave a positive fight but Indian momentum was a way too high after defeating australia. Pakistani cricketers are getting very annoying with their religion card. I have seen Pakistanis to be “normal” in general but why would their cricketers have to be such tribal mullahs. I have no idea.

  3. Dear brother(malik)
    assalam.first i like to thank u for mentioning your thanks for all the muslims in the world,if you had not done that then we would think that u dont know we muslims in india(chennai) also pray only for our muslim brothers in pakistan to win.
    But dont worry about the bloody indians.
    See how Dhoni and his team celebrated the victory they just drown like the pigs.Dhoni “paitha” and sreeshant the buldog.A small suggestion for sresanth ‘if u continue to do the same when pakistan is coming(in November’07)to india then surely u will broke ur hand and legs by our speedstar Akthar.

  4. Whining about Malik and not taking care of Pathan brothers who were not given prize Initially?

    Those who live in glasshouse don’t throw stones on others. My point of view about this lame controversy is given here

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