India and Pakistan share long and rich cricketing history. The two teams are also considered the biggest arch-rivals in the cricket world. While the two teams don’t play against each other in bilateral series anymore, they compete in multi-nation tournaments and the rivalry is still very much alive. But long back, in the 90s, the two teams played bilateral cricket as well and it was then the rivalry took off.
The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Virender Sehwag, and Sunil Gavaskar made games interesting with their performances. Tendulkar, for India, was particularly rising and shining and the fans wanted him to bat forever. The bowler who got Tendulkar out had to face the wrath of the fans and the same happened during a Test match in the 1998/99 Asian Test Championship.
India and Pakistan were playing each other and Tendulkar had a terrible first inning where he was dismissed for a duck by Shoaib Akhtar. However, fans expected the batter to redeem himself in the second innings but an unfortunate incident led to Tendulkar’s dismissal. The batter collided with Shoaib, who was fielding this time with Pakistan captain Wasim Akram bowling, while taking a run and was run out as a result.
The crowd at the Eden Gardens was not too impressed by the Pakistan players who appealed for the dismissal and celebrated once it was ruled in their favour. The match had to be stopped as they started pelting stones and hurling abuses at the visitors. Looking at all this, India captain Sunil Gavaskar approached Akram with the match referee and asked the Pakistan captain to recall the appeal.
“During the break, I was approached by the match referee with Sunil Gavaskar. 'Wasim, we think you should recall Sachin,' said Sunny. People will love you in India. Sunny knew how partisan the Kolkata crowd could be - he had once refused to play a Test there because he had been so badly barracked the previous time,” says Wasim in an excerpt from the book, Sultan: A Memoir.
“But I had my own fans to worry about. 'Sunny bhai... they might love me in India but they'll hate me in Pakistan,' I said. 'Anyway, it's not my decision. The umpire has given him out. It's too late for me to withdraw the appeal. Play has continue. We all know it's an accident but cricket is full of accidents. It's not up to the captains to rectify,” Wasim added.