Former cricketer Aakash Chopra has slammed the Pakistani TV show for ridiculous allegations against the Indian cricket team after its dominating win over Sri Lanka in Mumbai.
Put into bat first, fine performances from Shubman Gill (92), Virat Kohli (88) and Shreyas Iyer (82) helped India post a mammoth 357 for 8 in 50 overs.
In reply, Sri Lanka were bundled out for 55 as Mohammed Shami (5 for 18), Mohammed Siraj (3 for 16) and Jasprit Bumrah (1/8) wreaked havoc with their lethal swing and seam at the iconic Wankhede Stadium.
However, their brilliant bowling performance wasn’t well received by former Pakistani cricketer Hasan Raza, who feels the International Cricket Council (ICC) is helping India by giving them a different set of balls and umpires are also helping the hosts.
“The balls given to Indian bowlers should be checked. They are getting more swing and seam. Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj are bowling like Allan Donald and Makhaya Ntini. Even Mathews was surprised to see the amount of swing Shami’s ball got in Mumbai. Either ICC is helping them, or BCCI is coming to help their bowlers. There could be an involvement of the third umpire as well,” Hasan said while speaking on a Pakistani TV show.
The 46-year-old Chopra was quick to react to the cricket show on Pakistan TV channel ABN and called it an unserious one.
“Is it a serious cricket show? If not, please mention ‘satire’ ‘comedy’ in English somewhere. I meanâ€æit might be written in Urdu already but unfortunately, I can’t read/understand it,” Chopra tweeted.
With the dominant win over Sri Lanka, which was their seventh consecutive victory of the tournament, hosts India became the first semi-finalists of the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023.
India have two more matches to come, against South Africa in Kolkata and Netherlands in Bengaluru, but cannot be mathematically denied a top-four spot having won all seven of their matches so far.
The remainder of the semi-final lineup is yet to be determined, with Pakistan and Afghanistan still in the mix, just two points behind Australia and New Zealand in the standings.