Former captain of the Pakistan cricket team, Inzamam-ul-Haq has refuted claims of leg-spinner Danish Kaneria who had alleged a few days back that he had to face racial abuse as he was a ‘Hindu’. Kaneria had also alleged that there were many occasion when his teammates refused to eat with him because of his religion.
Inzamam however, has quashed the claims made by Kaneria. “Well for the most part of his career, Danish (Kaneria) played under my captaincy. I have heard that he has alleged that players did not go out with him or eat on the same table. To be frank, I never noticed any such thing,” Inzamam has said on his YouTube channel. “If that was the case it would have certainly got my attention.”
The former Pak captain has also pointed out that religion never played a part in the Pakistan dressing room. “We had a Christian cricketer too – Yousuf Youhana. He never had any complaints. He later on converted to the Muslim faith and became Mohammad Yousuf. If he had been singled out and hassled for being a Christian, he wouldn’t have certainly converted,” asserted Inzamam.
The former skipper have gone on to say that the entire Pakistani team during his tenure had very warm and cordial relations with their Indian counterparts. “That is because in sports there is no religion,” Inzamam said.
“I was always very close to Sourav Ganguly. Whenever I was in Kolkata he used to send me food from the restaurant he had then. We are very good friends too, like I am with Sachin Tendulkar. If we had laid so much emphasis on religion, this bonding wouldn’t have been possible,” he added.
It should be stated here that Kaneria had said he was always targetted by co-players because of his religion and he suffered a lot for it.
PNN & Agencies
