AFRIDI

Days after winning millions of hearts with his remark on ending the hatred towards India, Pakistan cricket captain Shahid Afridi disappointed his Indian fans saying that the Indians were not as large hearted as Pakistanis.

 
Speaking during a talk show on a Pakistani news channel, Afridi was asked about the relations between India and Pakistan when he responded that the Indians would "never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis". He even termed the talks between the two countries futile.
 
"They (Indians) will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. It is a very difficult thing for us to live with them (Indians) or to have long-term relationship with them. Nothing will come out of talks. See how many times in the past 60 years we have had friendship and then how many times things have gone bad," Afridi said on Sunday.
 
Without naming a third country, Afridi seemed to blame the US for the history of poor relations between the two south Asian neighbours.
 
"We don't want to fight with each other but a third country everyone knows which one it is trying to spoil our relations. (This country) is taking advantage of Pakistan and wants to take advantage of India. I don't want to go into details but these people will not let us come together," he added.

Asked about the Indian media's coverage of the Pakistani team during the semi-final with India at Mohali on March 30, Afridi replied: "The Indian media has a very negative approach and very negative thoughts. The people may not be like that but I think the media had a very dirty role in spoiling relations between us and India.

"Our media, which is criticised by people, is hundred times better than theirs," he said.

India beat Pakistan in the semi-final, which was watched by the Prime Ministers of the two countries, who used cricket diplomacy to boost the peace process between the two sides.

Afridi also criticised Interior Minister Rehman Malik for warning the Pakistani team not to get involved in match-fixing and Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who vowed to dedicate victory in the World Cup final to victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

"I think they were both very stupid comments by Rehman Malik and Gautam Gambhir...I wasn't expecting this from Gautam...This is all politics, what do you know about who carried out the Bombay attacks?" he said.

The Mumbai attacks, which left 166 people dead, were carried out by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.