Terrible atmosphere to play cricket with India: PM Imran

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan believes that the atmosphere would be terrible, if an Indo-Pak bilateral series takes place in the near future.

The last time India and Pakistan played a bilateral series was back in 2012, when the former hosted the Men in Green for a limited-overs series — which had two Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) and three One-day International (ODIs).

“Right now, playing cricket in this atmosphere with this sort of a government in power, I would imagine it would be a terrible atmosphere on the cricket ground,” said Khan while speaking during the ‘Out Of Exile’ documentary on Sky Sports.

“I played two series in India. One in 1979 when the two governments were trying to come close. I can’t tell you how wonderful the atmosphere was on the cricket field. Big crowds,” he added. “The next time I went was in 1987 and this time, there was tension between the two governments. I saw hostility in India which I had never seen before. Our players were being pelted from the ground and I made them wear helmets while fielding at the boundary. It wasn’t a very good atmosphere on certain grounds.”

ALSO READ: Misbah, Younis unperturbed by Fawad Alam’s batting stance

“When India came to Pakistan in 2005, again the governments were trying to get close. I never thought I would see on a cricket ground what happened. Pakistan lost to India in Pakistan and the crowds cheered the Indian team. Great atmosphere,” he further stated.

Khan also compared Indo-Pak series with the Ashes — which is played between England and Australia.

“There’s nothing quite like the Ashes for the English. But Pakistan-India series is just in a different league in terms of tension, pressure, and enjoyment,” he said.

The Premier also touted Test matches as the best form of cricket but was fascinated by the variety of strokes in T20 cricket. 

“If I have time to watch cricket, I time it to the last 5 overs of the result. If it’s a close game, it’s quite fun to watch. As a connoisseur of cricket, I don’t enjoy T20. I enjoy the improvisation in strokeplay, I look at the T20 games and think why I didn’t try to develop those strokes. But I just love good quality Test cricket, but for that, I don’t have much time,” he said.