‘He was a liar, and manipulator’: Danish Kaneria makes surprising revelations about Shahid Afridi

Danish Kaneria was instrumental in Pakistan’s performances in Test cricket in the period between 2000 and 2010. He played featured in 61 Tests for Pakistan and has picked up 261 wickets in them. His tally is the best among Pakistani spinners in the longest format of the game. Kaneria also featured in 18 ODIs before his career came to an abrupt end in 2012 owing to a life ban from all forms of cricket for spot-fixing.

However, Kaneria is recently in the news because of the revelations he has made about his former teammate Shahid Afridi. As quoted by news18 Kaneria said that Afridi played a big part in his omission from the one-day team. He also revealed that Afridi headed a lot of religious barriers created against him within the team, as he was a Hindu.

Kaneria also went ahead in thanking Shoaib Akhtar for speaking about the mistreatments with him for the first time in public but was pressurized by the authorities to keep quiet. He also called Afridi a liar and manipulator after getting to know that Shahid Afridi provoked other players against him. Kaneria also felt that Afridi’s behavior was out of jealousy as they both were leg-spinners and Kaneria was doing well.

“Shoaib Akhtar was the first person to talk about my problem in public. Hats off to him for saying it. However, he was later pressured by several authorities. He then stopped talking about it. But yes, it did happen to me. I was always degraded by Shahid Afridi. We used to play together for the same department, he used to keep me on the bench and didn’t let me play the one-day tournament,”- Kaneria said.

“He didn’t want me to be in the team. He was a liar, and manipulator because he’s a characterless person. However, my focus was only on cricket and I used to ignore all these tactics. Shahid Afridi was the only person who would go to other players and provoke them against me. I was performing well and he was jealous of me. I am proud that I played for Pakistan, I was grateful,”- he further added.