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There have been quite a few stories of dressing room spats that have come up over the years. However, the one between Pakistan pacers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif should easily rank among the worst. Years after the 2007 incident, former captain Shahid Afridi has thrown light on the incident. Notably, reports had emerged that Akhtar had hit his fellow pacer Asif with a bat and when the reports were found to be true, the Rawalpindi Express was called back from the inaugural ICC World T20 in South Africa.
Talking about the incident, Afridi said that Asif had in fact sided with him in a joke which did not go down well with Akhtar who lost his cool. Previously, Akhtar had talked about the incident in his autobiography "Controversially Yours", where he suggested it was Afridi who aggravated the situation. And now Asif has also reacted to the ugly spat.
Asif said that Akhtar has lived off the incident for 13 years and made quite many comments about it wherever he has found an opportunity to do so. The former pacer revealed that he called up Akhtar recently and told him to "move on" from it.
Called Shoaib Akhtar recently and told him to shut up: Mohammad Asif
"The dressing room spat with Shoaib Akhtar in 2007 was an incident that Shoaib Akhtar has lived off for 13 years. He has made so many comments about it and has kept on bringing it up whenever he can. Well, I had enough, so I called him up recently and told him to shut up about the incident and move on from it. I told him to get over what happened, it’s history now," Asif said in an interview with Pak Passion.
Asif, who received a seven-year ban for his involvement in the 2010 match-fixing scandal, suggested Akhtar should help the youngsters instead of talking about something from the past which is of little significance today.
"One day he’s dreaming of being the Chief Selector, the next day he’s dreaming about being Pakistan’s Head Coach or Chairman PCB. He needs to get back to reality and actually focus on helping young cricketers instead of chatting about something that happened more than 13 years ago," Asif added.