Former Pakistan Cricketer Waqar Younis questioned the sportsmanship of Team India, suggesting they lost the 30 June match against England in the Cricket World Cup on purpose to knock Pakistan out of the tournament; this seems to have not gone down too well with Indian cricket fans.
Younis’s tweet where he wrote “Sportsmanship of few Champions got tested and they failed” comes after several former Pakistani cricketers like Sikandar Bakht and Basit Ali suggesting before the match that India would willfully underperform in the match.
Due to the arrangement of the points table at the tournament, Pakistan were heavily banking on neighbouring India getting the better of England to keep their hopes of reaching the semi-finals alive.
But the tweet led to a row on the twitter, evoking a number of furious reactions. Some Indian fans preferred bashing the former cricketer, stating that cricket is a game and winning and losing is a part of it.
One user reminded the former Pakistan captain of a similar situation in 2009 Champions trophy, where India required Pakistan to win a match against Australia to progress in the tournament. But the later ended up losing the match.
There were others who opted to mock the former Pakistani captain vis-à-vis the political tensions between his country and its neighbour to the east.
However, Pakistani netizens were quick to back Younis’ claim that India was underperforming in the match and questioned the “lack of intent” shown by the Indian team.
One user posted a clipping of a post-match show where sports gurus expressed their surprise...
Earlier, chasing a target of 338 set by England, India could manage 306/5 in their full quota of 50 overs at Edgbaston and suffered their first defeat in the ongoing Cricket World Cup tournament. While India looks almost set to qualify for the semi-finals with two games remaining, Pakistan's team, who are virtually out of the tournament, would face Bangladesh in their last encounter.