Shahid Afridi makes BIG statement against India after New Zealand, England cancel Pakistan tour

Pakistan faced a severer blow after New Zealand and England cancelled their respective tours and former Men in Green captain Shahid Afridi expressed his disappointment over the same.

While the Kiwis had decided to abandon their entire tour just hours before the first ODI in Rawalpindi on September 17 following reports of a security threat, England also withdrew from the men and women tour citing players' mental health as a reason.

However, the New Zealand Cricket board did not share details of the security threat with the Pakistan Cricket Board or with the Pakistan government.

Expressing his views over the situation, Shahid Afridi said that the Kiwi players are loved in Pakistan but what they have done was "unforgivable" as they flew out their players soon after the mail.

"New Zealand cricketers are loved in Pakistan and for them to do something like this is unforgivable. If there was any potential threat, they should have been shared with the PCB and waited for Pakistan's security forces to assess the situation," Afridi told Cricket Pakistan.

"We all know that there is a huge amount of scrutiny when it comes to arranging tours. Proper investigations are conducted by the security members of the touring nation. The routes are defined and only when the process is completed, that is when the teams are given the green signal to visit the country."

Notably, on Wednesday, Pakistan's information minister Fawad Chaudhry had alleged that the e-mail threatening New Zealand "was generated from India through a VPN showing the location of Singapore". 

Talking about the same, Afridi said, "If you have to look at the bigger picture then I think we need to take a decision which shows the world that we are also a country and we have our pride. It’s ok if one country is behind us but I don’t think other countries should also make the same mistake.

"They are all educated nations and should not follow India. Instead, cricket should improve relations. The situation was bad in India. We were getting threats. Our board asked us to go and we went there. Similarly, during Covid-19, the situation that there was in England, the cricket went on. If you trust false e-mails and cancel tours then I believe you are offering them fodder to win," he further added.