'I called him up recently and told him to shut up' – Mohammad Asif slams Shoaib Akhtar over 2007 dressing room spat

Many stories of altercations in the Pakistan dressing room have come out over the years. Recently, Shahid Afridi shot up one such episode as he threw light on the infamous spat between Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. In 2007, reports surfaced that Shoaib Akhtar had hit his fellow Pakistan pacer Asif with a bat. The reports were confirmed later, and Akhtar was called back from the inaugural ICC World T20 in South Africa.

Speaking of the incident in a recent interview, Afridi said that Asif had sided with him in a joke, and this enraged Shoaib Akhtar. Notably, Akhtar had previously talked about the incident in his autobiography, Controversially Yours, where he accused Afridi of aggravating the situation. Now, Asif has also reacted to the incident and has asked Akhtar to ‘shut up’ about the spat.

Asif, who was banned for seven years for his involvement in the 2010 match-fixing scandal, said Akhtar has lived off the incident for 13 years and made so many comments about it. The former pacer even revealed that he called up Akhtar and told him to ‘move on’ from it.

I called Shoaib Akhtar recently and told him to shut up about the incident: Mohammad Asif

“The dressing room spat with Shoaib Akhtar in 2007 was an incident that Shoaib Akhtar has lived off for 13 years. He has made so many comments about it and has kept on bringing it up whenever he can. Well, I had enough, so I called him up recently and told him to shut up about the incident and move on from it. I told him to get over what happened, it’s history now,” Asif told Pak Passion.

The 38-year-old also said that the ‘Rawalpindi Express’ should focus on helping young cricketers rather than ‘dreaming’ about becoming Pakistan’s head coach, national selector, or PCB chairman.

“One day he’s dreaming of being the Chief Selector, the next day he’s dreaming about being Pakistan’s Head Coach or Chairman PCB, he needs to get back to reality and actually focus on helping young cricketers instead of chatting about something that happened more than 13 years ago,” the former right-arm pacer asserted.

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