New Delhi: Over the past few days, former Pakistan spinner Danish Kaneria has been locked in a Twitter spat with Indian journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani.
The war of words erupted in light of the Indian crowd’s “Jai Shri Ram” chants during the India-Pakistan World Cup match in Ahmedabad earlier this month, as Sherwani said she was ashamed of the episode and blamed it on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Kaneria, a part of Pakistan’s Hindu minority, replied that Sherwani should come to Pakistan if “you are feeling ashamed to be an Indian”, leading her to term his statement “communal” — an allegation denied by Kaneria.
Religion has been a frequent talking point for Kaneria, inarguably the most successful spinner to have ever played Test cricket for Pakistan.
Only the second Hindu cricketer to play for Pakistan at the international level, he has been in the eye of a storm since he first spoke about facing discrimination in the team on religious grounds.
In a video posted by Kaneria on 15 October, Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad and former Sri Lanka opener Tillakratne Dilshan are purportedly seen walking towards the pavilion while in conversation.
Captions running on the screen show Shehzad purportedly saying, “if you are non-Muslim and you turn Muslim, no matter whatever you do in life, straight to heaven”. There are no subtitles for what Dilshan says, and then Shehzad purportedly claims, “Then be ready for the fire”.
“Be it the dressing room, the playground or the dining table, this happened to me every day,” Kaneria wrote.
Kaneria’s experience with the Pakistani cricket team has been a matter of much debate across the border.
‘Rawalpindi Express’ Shoaib Akhtar has publicly discussed that being the lone Hindu in the team caused Kaneria to face much difficulty, but others like former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq have denied this.
Kaneria himself has suggested that his religion was a likely factor in his ODI career being limited at 18 matches.
ThePrint reached Kaneria over WhatsApp for a comment, but he declined the call and didn’t respond to texts.
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All started with Shoaib Akhtar’s claim
Kaneria made his Test debut in 2000 against England, and went on to play 61 Test matches in which he picked up 261 wickets.
He was the most successful spin bowler to have played the longest format for Pakistan and picked his wickets at 34.79 apiece and every 67.8 balls.
However, he played all of 18 ODIs, picking up 15 wickets.
Kaneria was known to be a good bowler who could deceive batters with his variations but was never considered a great on the lines of Abdul Qadir.
In 2019, former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar — on a chat show with Pakistani journalist Rouf Klasra — alleged that Kaneria faced religious discrimination in the team.
There were players, he said, who raised objections to him taking food from the place where all the other players were eating.
Referring to England’s tour of Pakistan in 2005-06, Akhtar said he had to fight with players, adding that Kaneria was a match-winner who won Pakistan that series by picking up big wickets.
For the record, Kaneria took 11 wickets in the first and third test of the three-match series and Pakistan won the series 2-0.
Kaneria responded to Akhtar’s claim by thanking him for “telling the truth”. He also expressed gratitude to senior players, administrators and fans for supporting him regardless of his beliefs.
The statements, however, led to immediate blowback as the issue reached the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), which placed the onus of the alleged mistreatment on individual players.
Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Yousaf, who converted from Christianity to Islam in 2005, condemned the comments, while Inzamam refuted the claims in a video on his YouTube channel.
“I have been hearing about this controversy with Danish, that when he played then, some boys didn’t think well about him or didn’t want to eat with him or go out with him. The captain who Danish played the most under is me, and I never felt this thing, that there is any such thing in our team, that any player treats another player badly if he is a non-Muslim,” he said. “I never noted even a single example of any such thing in our team.”
Legendary cricketer Javed Miandad, who was Pakistan’s coach in the early 2000s, questioned the credibility of Kaneria, pointing out his involvement in spot-fixing.
Kaneria was handed a lifetime ban from all cricket by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for being involved in spot-fixing in county cricket and inducing an Essex teammate to participate in it as well.
“What are they trying to achieve, I don’t understand. But if you talk about Kaneria, he will say anything for money and he has no credibility left in cricket. How can you believe someone who is serving a life ban for corruption in cricket? Who let down his country? I was head coach of the Pakistan team in early 2000 and Kaneria was in the team and I don’t remember a single incident where there was ever any issue about his being a Hindu,” news agency PTI quoted Miandad as saying.
Three years earlier, a lawmaker in the Pakistan National Assembly had said the PCB was not helping Kaneria in case of an appeal against the ECB ban due to his faith.
“PCB is not providing financial and legal assistance to Kaneria because he is a Hindu by faith,” Pakistani newspaper Dawn quoted PML-N lawmaker Ramesh Kumar Vankvani as saying.
Hurt Hindu but proud Pakistani
Amid the criticism he faced, Kaneria refuted the claims that he was trying to portray Pakistan cricket in a negative light.
In a conversation with Pakistan’s Samaa channel, he said there were several players who supported him and rated him highly despite him being a “proud Hindu”.
Asked if there was any pressure on him to convert to Islam, Kaneria refused.
“I never felt the need to change my religion because I believe in it and no one forced me either to do it.”
Through it all, Kaneria has insisted that he is a proud Pakistani, and didn’t want to blame all the people for the discrimination he faced at the hands of a few people.
In 2016, it was reported that he was seeking help from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to appeal his lifetime suspension, but he declined the reports.
Kaneria has also come clean on the allegations of spot-fixing, telling Al Jazeera in 2018 that he “was guilty of the two charges brought against me by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2012”.
“I have become strong enough to make this decision because you cannot live a life with lies,” he told Al Jazeera.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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