Pakistan begin their tour with a qualifier with Bangladesh tomorrow and then go on to play India at Eden Gardens.
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“My identity is Pakistan”.
“I was asked a question by a journalist and I tried to answer it in a positive way because I know whatever I say would be heard all across the world. People worship cricket in India”, he added.
“We have always enjoyed playing in India and have been loved by Indian crowds more than crowds back home in Pakistan”, Afridi had said. “He’s had a slight fever in the morning and we opted to give him rest”, Alam said as the rest of the Pakistani camp trained for more than two hours in the morning. If you look at our overall performances here, that does give us a lot of positivity. After being given historic welcome in Kolkata, an emotional Afridi had said that he never got the same love and affection from people in his own country. Speaking his mind, Shahid Afridi said that cricket virtually brought the two countries together, so there was “nothing like playing cricket with India”.
A total of 15,000 policemen will be on duty during the India-Pakistan game.
“Ministry of External Affairs of India refuses permission to seven Pakistan diplomats who were visiting Kolkata to encourage the Pakistan cricket team”.
It has traditionally been a battle between India’s batting and Pakistan’s bowling whenever the arch-rivals have met on a cricket field and Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi reckons the trend will continue in their World Twenty20 contest on Saturday. The charges against Afridi are “committing treason” and “hurting sentiments” because he said he was loved more in India than in Pakistan.
“Whatever decision the state takes, we are behind them”.
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“My message to the boys will be to leave everything behind because this is about playing for the nation, this is about playing some quality cricket and they’re all capable of playing good cricket. This ground suits us”, said Afridi, who has played 398 One-Day Internationals (ODIs), 94 T20Is and 27 Tests.
