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.
It's not who you are.. What you do in life defines who you are.. Me not bothered if Pakistan gets to the semis or not but one thing is for sure.. Sportsmanship of few Champions got tested and they failed badly #INDvsEND #CWC2019
— Waqar Younis (@waqyounis99) June 30, 2019
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.
Shove your morality lessons, You-know-where pic.twitter.com/LxMphskGpn
— Archie (@archu243) July 1, 2019
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.
Don't even talk about sportsmanship @waqyounis99 !! That's well documented in World Cricket !! Ask your boys to play good cricket, consistent cricket !!
— Mikkhail Vaswani (@MikkhailVaswani) July 1, 2019
— Bhagat Negi (@BhagatN77412184) July 1, 2019
How can you make such allegations ?
— Dr Khushboo 🤭 (@khushikadri) July 1, 2019
When you team plays badly consistently at the start of the CWC that time u didn’t suspect any foul play ??
Our team plays one bad game & All Hell Breaks Lose On PAK Twitter 🤷🏻♀️
Please concentrate on your team’s progress 🙄
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.
Well said.
— Anwar Lodhi (@AnwarLodhi) June 30, 2019
This seems a fixed match which puts a big question mark on this world cup. If this practice is allowed in future, top four teams can manipulate the whole tournament and decide who will play the semi finals or finals. Really feeling disgusted to see this happening.
From ball one it seemed that way man.Sloppy ground fielding,no one once came near Shami to tell or ask him what he was doing towards end.Have you ever seen kohli so calm after getting out? And final thing the only6 in india's inning came in last over.just few points I mentioned
— Aamir (@iAamirCan) June 30, 2019
One user posted a clipping of a post-match show where sports gurus expressed their surprise...
For Indian fans who are real cricket lovers. Listen to Brendon Mc Cullum, Bob Willis. No of of times bizzare, surprising. Unfathomable etc is mentioned should worry you. What they are trying to say is quite obvious. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/nBvWGacTwG
— بابا رحمت دین (@rehmat_baba) July 1, 2019
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.
