Former pacer and current bowling coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Waqar Younis, wants Gautam Gambhir and Shahid Afridi, who have been at loggerheads for years now, to be “smart, sensible, and calm down”.
Gambhir and Afridi have had several run-ins since their playing days and have been in the news multiple times over the past few years for taking digs at each other on public platforms.
Also read – From on-field clash to Twitter war: How Gautam Gambhir and Shahid Afridi’s feud turned ugly
In a chat show called Q20 organised by GloFans, Younis advised the two former cricketers to talk things out and bury the hatchet.
“The banter between Gambhir and Afridi has been going on for a while now. I think they both got to be smart, sensible, and calm down,” said Younis. “It has been going on for way too long. My advice to them is to maybe catch up somewhere around the world and talk it out if you cannot really calm it down. On social media, if you carry on like that, people are going to love and enjoy it. I feel that they both should be smart about it.”
Younis also spoke in favour of the resumption of India-Pakistan bilateral cricket. The last time both the countries played a bilateral cricket series was back in 2012-13. Since then, the two teams have been meeting only in ICC tournaments.
“If you go and ask people of both the countries on whether Pakistan and India should play each other, everyone, or at least around 95% of them, will agree that cricket between these two teams should be played,” said Younis.
“Be it the ‘Imran-Kapil Series’ or the ‘Independence Series’ or whatever name we give to it, I think that it would be the biggest hit in the world. I think Pakistan and India should play, and should play on a regular basis to avoid depriving cricket lovers of their matches.
“I do see Pakistan and India playing bilateral series. I am not sure where, though, but I hope it will be either in Pakistan or in India. You don’t want to see them playing in some other country. You want to see them playing in their own countries. But I definitely say that in the next few years, Pakistan and India will be playing each other.”
