'Prayers with the people of India' - Shoaib Akhtar extends his support amid Covid-19 crisis

India is currently facing difficult times due to a steep rise in the number of the daily positive coronavirus cases. The country is reporting about 300K+ Covid-19 cases and about 2000 deaths daily. In addition, the country is also witnessing a shortage in the oxygen supply with many hospitals across the country complaining about the dearth of the oxygen gas.

The situation in India is turning worse day by day. Meanwhile, seeing the plight of his neighbouring country, the former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar sympathised with India and hoped that the situation will come under control soon and the government will be able to handle the health crisis better. 

Akhtar also extended his prayers and good wishes to the Indian citizens in a tweet posted on his official Twitter handle. “Prayers with the people of India. I hope things come in control soon & their government is able to handle the crisis better. We are all in it together. #IndiaNeedsOxygen #IndiaFightsCOVID19 #oneworld,” Akhtar tweeted.

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

The 2007 dressing room incident is one of the most controversial episode in the history of Pakistan cricket. The incident took place in 2007 in Johannesburg between Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. It was learned that the two batters were involved in a verbal spat and it resulted in Asif being struck by a bat on his left thigh.

Years after the infamous spat, Asif opined on the incident saying that Akhtar has lived off that for 13 years but should now stop talking about it. Asif also revealed that he talked with the speedster and told him to talk sense and help the young cricketers instead of getting stuck on one instance.

“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 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.

“Instead of talking about that incident in every interview, I told him to talk sense, talk about how he can help young cricketers in Pakistan. One day he’s dreaming of being the Chief Selector, the next day he’s dreaming about being Pakistan’s Head Coach or Chairman [of the] 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,” he said as quoted by PakPassion.