‘Old foes’ Gautam Gambhir, Shahid Afridi meet again on TV but leave daggers behind

Not often do we see cricketers from across the Wagah border agreeing to a point, especially if they are known to be strongly opinionated individuals. But one got to see such a rare moment on Wednesday when India and Pakistan locked horns in an Asia Cup encounter in Dubai and it was a welcome experience. On the field, meanwhile, India thumped Pakistan by winning a one-sided game by 8 wickets with almost half of the innings to spare.

Indian opener Gautam Gambhir appeared an Indian news channel while former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi came for his country’s ARY News at a joint show of both the channels. The two players have been known for their controversial conducts on the field even had instances where they ran into each other. They have also been seen crossing swords on social media platforms like Twitter.

However, the two on Wednesday were far from their aggressive avatars and had a healthy conversation on the show. The Indian anchor tried to extract reactions from both dashing cricketers over their Twitter conversations. While Afridi said: “It is Gautam’s love”, the Indian batsman said: “the tweets deserve that types of replies”. The former Pakistani international also said that as celebrities, they should carry the message of love and peace.

Gambhir said soldiers die on both sides of the border and mothers lose their sons in both countries. He also said that the two countries should play cricket only when their relations improve at the bilateral level for he thinks lives of the people are more important.

Both Gambhir and Afridi blame media

The Pakistani anchor on the show then tried to revive the memories of the on-field arguments that took place between Gambhir and Afridi during an ODI series in 2007 and on this occasion, both the sportsmen found themselves on the same page. They blamed the media saying it was the latter that gave it a negative press and that arguments on the field are common and there is nothing personal in that.

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