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Cricket Players‘I broke Yuvraj’s back’: Shoaib Akhtar recalls how he used to ‘cross the line’ while showing his affection
Cricket fans remember the altercations Akhtar had with Harbhajan and Virender Sehwag while even getting Rahul Dravid riled up with his antics.
Shoaib Akhtar has always had a love-hate relationship with Indian cricketers. During his playing days, Akhtar was always at loggerheads with his counterparts. Cricket fans remember the altercations Akhtar had with Harbhajan and Virender Sehwag while even getting Rahul Dravid riled up with his antics. After announcing his retirement, Akhtar worked a lot in India for cricket assignments and developed a friendship with many players.
Akhtar recently remembered incidents where he wrestled with Indian players Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh. Akhtar claimed that while wrestling jokingly he sometimes ended up injuring his counterparts and sometimes his teammates.
“I don’t wrestle, it’s my way of showing my affection to other people and I basically crossed the line. When I like someone, I throw them.”
“I broke Yuvraj’s back, have previously broken Shahid Afridi’s rib by hugging him, and I made Abdul Razzaq stretch his hamstring a bit too much. So my way of loving people is a bit wild. It was just me being stupid in my younger days but I never realised my own power,” he said on BBC’s Doosra podcast.
Akhtar is known for making controversial statements. Some days ago, Akhtar talked about the time when he was youngster breaking into the Pakistan team and was bowling to Tendulkar for the very first time in his career during the Kolkata Test in 1999.
“I heard Sachin was the god. I said this is a god? Iss ki khairiyat nahi. He didn’t recognize me, and I didn’t recognize him. He was in his own attitude and I was in my attitude. But I wanted to get him out on the first ball and that happened,” Akhtar told Pakistani news channel ARY News in an interview.
