LAHORE – In a heartwarming show of sportsmanship and camaraderie, the Indian cricket team has sent a special retirement gift to Pakistan’s former T20 captain Shahid Afridi – a Virat Kohli shirt signed by the entire Indian cricket team.
Afridi, 37, ended his illustrious 21-year career in February when he announced his retirement from the T20 version of cricket. He had already retired from Test and One-Day formats of the game.
Faizan Lakhani, a Pakistani journalist based in Karachi, posted this picture on Twitter over the weekend:
Virat Kohli’s shirt, signed by Indian team, for Shahid Afridi, with a message “always a pleasure playing against you.” pic.twitter.com/KexlCjTNeZ
— Faizan Lakhani (@faizanlakhani) April 15, 2017
The ODI jersey, with the number 18 and “Virat” printed on it, has the signatures of Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra, Jasprit Bumrah, Suresh Raina, Pawan Negi, Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, R Ashwin, Hardik Pandya and former coach Ravi Shastri, among others, on it.
The jersey also carried this special message from Kohli: “Best wishes, Shahid Bhai. Always a pleasure playing against you.”
This shows both sworn enemies on the pitch – Pakistan and India – are quite friendly off it and have a lot of mutual respect for each other.
