A day after former India opener Gautam Gambhir mocked at Shahid Afridi by terming the ex-Pakistan captain, a perennially immature person in a comical twitter war, Indian captain Virat Kohli said that even though he does not have complete knowledge, his priority stays with his nation.
In what could be called as a diplomatic answer, Kohli said: “As an Indian you want to express what is best for your nation and my interests are always for the benefit of our nation. If anything opposes it, I would never support it for sure: Virat Kohli on Shahid Afridi.”
He added: “But having said that, it's a very personal choice for someone to comment about certain issues. Unless I have total knowledge of the issues and the intricacies of it, I don't engage in it but definitely your priority stays with your nation.”
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Former Indian captain Kapil Dev also hit out at Afridi, asking journalists not give him much importance.
“Why are we giving importance to him? We should not be giving importance to certain people,” said Kapil Dev when asked about Afridi’s tweet on Kashmir.
On Tuesday, Gambhir said that Afridi's tweet on the current situation in Kashmir and his reference to United Nations was according to "his age bracket".
"Media called me for reaction on @SAfridiOfficial tweet on OUR Kashmir & @UN. What's there to say? Afridi is only looking for @UN which in his retarded dictionary means “UNDER NINTEEN” his age bracket. Media can relax, @SAfridiOfficial is celebrating a dismissal off a no-ball!!!," Gambhir wrote on his Twitter handle.
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Gambhir and Afridi have a history of on-field run-ins when they were representing their respective countries. It is not the first time that Gambhir has questioned Afridi's maturity.
But today's response by Gambhir has also that funny element as well as implied meaning about his nemesis.
Earlier in the day, Afridi had tweeted: "Appalling and worrisome situation ongoing in the Indian Occupied Kashmir.Innocents being shot down by oppressive regime to clamp voice of self determination & independence. Wonder where is the @UN & other int bodies & why aren't they making efforts to stop this bloodshed?"
This was not the first time Gambhir hit out at former Pakistani cricketer for his statements.
Post India’s World Cup win against India in 2011, Afridi commented that Indians did not have “big clean hearts” like Pakistani Muslims. On a TV channel, he also commented that Pakistan’s media was “100 times better” than India’s. It brought sharp reactions from Gambhir, who then said: "It looks like Afridi is behaving still in the same manner when he debuted at the age of 16 in international cricket. He is still immature. It was my personal wish to pay tributes to the 26/11 victims."
On his verbal skirmish with Afridi during a test match in 2007 leading to one-match ban, Gambhir said, "I now realise that I should not have lost my temper on small issues. It was a personal thing. He had hurled abuses at me, which I do not want to mention here."
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Harbhajan Singh was quoted as saying, “If Indians were not large-hearted, they would not have made so much of progress and delivered growth.”
In 2016, Afridi faced backlash for stating that the Pakistan national cricket team was “loved more in India” than in Pakistan. He was slammed from all quarters for this comment.
