Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar has said that his statement regarding Danish Kaneria was taken completely out of context and there was never a culture in the team to discriminate anybody on the basis of race as he claimed Kaneria was earlier humiliated in the Pakistan team.
“I watched the mess that was made of my statement, which was taken completely out of context,” Shoaib Akhtar said in a tweet with a video on his YouTube channel.
“There is unwritten contract that we got to respect every player no matter what. But there was some hesitation shown by a few players. This is not our team’s code of conduct. This is just 1-2 players’ and there are these kinds of players all over the world who pass racist comments,” he said.
“We, as a society, should realise that this should be nipped from the bud. I am a product of this society and I did that. I had told them I will throw you out if you talk like this (about Kaneria’s faith). Because this is not our culture. We as a nation did not let such discriminatory thoughts prevail. We stopped it there. We have improved a lot as a society in the last 10-15 years,” he shared.
He added: “Danish has helped Pakistan win a lot of matches. Danish has played for Pakistan for 10 years. He was played over Mushtaq Ahmed. I still feel he should have been played two years earlier.”
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On the other hand, Danish Kaneria on Saturday said that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the government did not offer any help after he was banned from the sport.
“It is a fact that I didn’t get any support from the Pakistan government or the board after the ban and my acceptance, whereas other players in similar situation play for Pakistan with support from the PCB and are honoured. Any drawn conclusion on this matter would prove Shoaib Akhtar claim as right.”
Shoaib Akhtar added, “Danish Kaneria was never left out (of the team) by Pakistan. He was dropped because of the ECB. He had a match-fixing issue and the ECB penalised him for that. Pakistan did no wrong with him.”
