Former flamboyant all-rounder Yuvraj Singh and right-hand batsman Rohit Sharma have requested the Indian and Pakistan team fans to support their players irrespective of the result in the match between the two arch-rivals.
Yuvraj, while talking to Rohit in an Instagram live session, said that fans of both the countries tend to lose their cool and abuse the players on social media if their team loses.
"Big example is India and Pakistan game. Everyone gets personal about their country but the point is you have to think about the players," said Yuvraj. "Everybody is giving their 100 percent on the field and only one team is going to win. Sometimes the opposition is going to win and sometimes you are going to win. Obviously, Indian team has won most matches in the championships because we have handled pressure in a better way. Similarly, Pakistan in the earlier decade was a much better team who did the same. People from both countries need to have more patience towards their players."
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The 32-year-old opener agreed with Yuvraj and said that people need to treat the aforementioned match as just another game and refrain from getting too emotional about it.
"I agree. This thing is important and whenever we get the opportunity we try to tell our fans about it," Sharma said. "We understand that you want your team to win and we try our best to win, but the other team is also playing and they will also try to win, so winning and losing is part of the game. But the thing is people should not write off players saying he is playing really badly and throw him out of the team."
"Fans should just enjoy the game and let authorities do what they are supposed to do," he added.
The Chandigarh-born all-rounder was also disappointed with the mindset of young Indian cricketers, who are only interested in playing limited overs cricket.
"I was at NCA once and I interacted with the younger lot. I felt most of them did not want to play Test cricket which is real cricket. They are happy playing one-day cricket," Yuvraj said. "I feel even the players who have already played for India should play domestic cricket when they are not on national duty. It would give them valuable experience of playing on different surfaces around the country."