Shahid Afridi: “I told Malik (Shoaib Malik). ‘Mera dil chaah raha hai main idhar patch bana du. Ball toh turn ho! (I want to create a patch on this pitch so badly. I want the ball to turn!)”
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Legendary Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi admitted that he was guilty of pitch tampering during a Test match against England in Faisalabad in 2005.
He noted that the pitch was not swinging, turning or providing any sort of assistance to the bowlers, which fuelled his decision.
Afridi recalled telling former Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik about his plan to tamper with the pitch, and the 41-year-old encouraged him to do it.
Looking back on the incident now, though, he admitted that it was a “mistake”, along with the incident where he was caught biting the cricket ball in 2010.
“The Test match was in Faisalabad. The ball was not turning, swinging, seaming. I was applying my full force and nothing was happening. Then suddenly, a gas cylinder exploded and everyone got distracted. I told Malik (Shoaib Malik). ‘Mera dil chaah raha hai main idhar patch bana du. Ball toh turn ho! (I want to create a patch on this pitch so badly. I want the ball to turn!),” Afridi, who recently served as Pakistan’s interim chief selector, said on a Samaa TV show as quoted by NDTV.
“Malik replied, ‘Kar de. Koi nai dekh raha’ (Do it, no one is watching). So I did that. And then, what happened is history. That incident and the ball-biting one – when I look back at those, I realise it was a mistake.”
It should be noted that Malik will now play for the Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), which begins on February 13.
He was traded to the Kings from the Peshawar Zalmi with Haider Ali in exchange for Pakistan captain Babar Azam.
The Kings will meet the Zalmi on February 14 in Karachi.
Karachi Kings Squad for PSL 8:Â Haider Ali, Imran Tahir, Matthew Wade, Imad Wasim, James Fuller, James Vince, Andrew Tye, Mohammad Amir, Shoaib Malik, Aamer Yamin, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Akhlaq, Sharjeel Khan, Tayyab Tahir, Irfan Khan Niazi, Qasim Akram, Mohammad Umar, Tabraiz Shamsi, Ben Cutting, Musa Khan and Faisal Akram