The former Pakistani speedster Shoaib Akhtar recently recalled one of the IPL games where he had dismissed the master blaster Sachin Tendulkar in Mumbai and he had to take the flak of the fans.
The Pakistani cricketers don’t feature in the IPL anymore because of the political tensions between the two countries, but they had featured in the inaugural season of the tournament and Shoaib Akhtar had represented Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly.
According to Akhtar, it was a fiery atmosphere in the stadium when he was given the new ball by Sourav Ganguly and in his opening spell, he was able to dismiss Sachin Tendulkar who was opening the batting for Mumbai Indians. Since the game was in Mumbai itself, the crowd was not happy with Sachin’s wicket at all.
Shoaib Akhtar revealed, while speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, that when he went back to the field at fine leg after dismissing Tendulkar, he was getting booed by the crowd and the KKR captain Ganguly had to come to his rescue.
Sourav Ganguly placed Shoaib Akhtar at the short midwicket position after he was booed at fine leg
Ganguly asked Akhtar to switch his fielding position from the fine leg boundary to the short midwicket position inside the 30-yard circle because the crowd was not going to be able to boo Akhtar from that far. Later Ganguly asked Akhtar jokingly, “Who even asked you to dismiss Tendulkar while playing in Mumbai?”
The rivalry of Sachin Tendulkar and Shoaib Akhtar was one of the most intense rivalries in world cricket back in the day, as Tendulkar was the best batsman in the world at that point of time, while Akhtar was the fastest bowler in the world who could crank up speeds upto 160 kph.
There were occasions when Sachin got the better of Akhtar and smashed him to all corners, but there were also a few games where Akhtar was able to dismiss Tendulkar and that IPL game between Mumbai Indians and KKR was one such occasion.
