I saw Tendulkar running between wickets on a horse: Afridi
Islamabad, Pakistan. In a sensational disclosure, Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi has claimed that Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar cheated by riding a horse to cover the distance between the wickets when he should have been using his legs. Afridi said that Sachin rode the horse again and again and went on to score a century against Pakistan in a 2005 ODI match at Ahmedabad, which India lost by 3 wickets.
“I clearly saw it,” Afridi recalled, “India batted first and I still remember Sachin and Sehwag coming out in the field riding on a big white horse, which had a pink tail and red hoofs. The reins of the horse were held by Sachin while Sehwag was riding behind him, clutching onto him like a baby.”
“I thought it was some Indian way to make a grand entry as they do in various events and ceremonies, so I kept quiet at that moment,” Afridi said, “But I was surprised when the horse stood back on the field even as Sachin and Sehwag took charge to bat.”
Afridi claims that he took up the issue with ground umpires, but both of them failed to see any horse on the field. He even asked them to call up the third umpire and verify it through video recordings, but shockingly even the third umpire couldn’t spot any horse on the ground.
“It was shocking,” Afridi shared his frustration, “We always knew that India cheated and used unfair means through BCCI, but this was a total shocker. Even now when I go back and look at the match recordings, I don’t see any horse. Clearly, they have used advanced technology and removed the horse from the recordings.”
Sachin Tendulkar, as seen by Shahid Afridi.
Afridi claims that he had to continue with the match as Inzamam-ul-Haq, the captain of Pakistani team in that match, too failed to see the horse and instead asked Afridi to concentrate on the match.
“This totally broke my confidence and I couldn’t take any wickets in the match,” Afridi revealed the hitherto secret incidents that took place six years ago, “I couldn’t believe when people failed to see Sachin getting on the horse as soon as he played a shot and going to the other end riding on a horse.”
“This was the reason Sehwag got run out,” Afridi provided a “proof” to back his allegations, “Sehwag failed to match the pace of the horse. Next batsman in was Dhoni, who could run as fast as the horse, so he didn’t get run out, but he was surprisingly caught by Kamran Akmal behind the wicket. The next one to follow was Ganguly, who again failed to match the pace of the horse and got run out. All these are documented, you can check it.”
“All the Indian players knew that there was a horse on the field for Sachin,” he further disclosed, “Harbhajan Singh, who was the 12th man in the match, used to bring green grass laced with Horlicks for the horse after each over. The horse did all the running for Sachin.”
Afridi claimed that Sachin scored as many as 63 runs while riding a horse, which was a blatant violation of ICC rules and proved that Sachin was not any great batsman.
“Who knows he might have used the same horse to score his double century in the ODI against South Africa last year,” Afridi alleged.
Afridi said that he was silent all these years as Pakistan eventually went on to win the match. “God punished them for using unfair means,” he said, “But Sachin was riding the horse even while fielding. It’s such a shame that I was declared out caught by Sachin riding a horse.”
The former Pakistani captain, who is currently under conditional retirement, claims that he will disclose more such startling truths in his upcoming autobiography named “From the horse’s mouth”.
