Ex-Pak player reminds Afridi of his ball-tampering saga as he becomes chief selector

Former Pakistan cricketer Danish Kaneria took a savage dig at Shahid Afridi after the latter got appointed as the chief selector of the men's team. Kaneria took to his official Twitter handle to post a picture of Afridi, where the former Pakistan captain can be seen tampering with a white kookaburra ball. Kaneria shared the embarrassing photo of Afridi along with a caption that read "Chief selector" and a few 'face with tears of joy' emojis.

The post has garnered over 5,000 likes since being uploaded a couple of hours ago. In the photo, Afridi can be seen sinking his teeth into the white kookaburra to tamper with the condition of the ball.

Afridi's ball-tampering saga

The incident occurred during the 5th ODI between Pakistan and Australia in January 2010. Afridi was made the stand-in captain after Mohammad Yousuf suffered a knee injury and was ruled out of the game. Batting first, Pakistan scored 212 runs in 50 overs with Umar Akmal and Fawad Alam smashing 67 and 63 runs, respectively. Pakistan came close while trying to defend the low total with Australia struggling at 178/7 at one stage in the match. 

Afridi felt he could turn the match in Pakistan's favour and hence he tampered with the ball to help his bowlers with the swing. Despite the tampering, Pakistan lost the match by 2 wickets. After the match, Afridi pleaded guilty during a hearing with referee Ranjan Madugalle. As a punishment for his actions, Afridi was banned from the T20I match that was scheduled to be played after the ODI series. 

Afridi has apologised for his actions on multiple occasions, including once when he said, "I shouldn’t have done it. It just happened. I was trying to help my bowlers and win a match, one match. There is no team in the world that doesn’t tamper with the ball. My methods were wrong. I am embarrassed, I shouldn’t have done it. I just wanted to win us a game but this was the wrong way to do it.”

Image: AP