Paaji, teach your fast bowler: Aamer Sohail recalls oral fight with Navjot Singh Sidhu during 1996 Sharjah match


Paaji, teach your fast bowler: Aamer Sohail recalls oral fight with Navjot Singh Sidhu during 1996 Sharjah match

Aamer Sohail Navjot Singh Sidhu

Former Pakistan skipper Aamer Sohail recalled the on-field verbal fight that happened during a match in Sharjah in the year 1996 between him, Aaqib Javed, and Navjot Singh Sidhu.

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While on a comedy show, Sidhu had enacted the anecdote but Sohail reckons that it was an erroneous story and also said that he clarified the incident earlier too.

“Everyone knows Navjot Singh Sidhu. He is one of the big names of cricket. I respect him and he is one of those batsmen I enjoyed watching a lot. He has performed really well against some of the best bowling line-ups in the world,” the former Pakistan batsman said.

“In a comedy show, he had talked about an anecdote. I had confronted him about it on a news channel in 2005 when we were talking. He again talked about that incident, and I told him that things had not happened the way he thinks.

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“I also told him that Aaqib Javed is in town, and the three of us can sit together and have a discussion on it. Last time, when I was commentating during the Asia Cup, this incident was raised again, and I clarified it. But he quoted this anecdote in a different way, so I think, I need to give a clarification on it,” Sohail further said.

“The incident took place when I was captaining Pakistan in 1996 in a match at Sharjah against India. Sidhu paaji was batting somewhere in the 90s. In the middle of an over, he came to me angrily and said ‘Aamir paaji, teach your fast bowler. He is doing this wrong’, so I asked him ‘paaji, what happened’. So, he said ‘he’s throwing abuses at me’. So I told him ‘paaji, ignore him.

“He’s a fast bowler, they have a habit of talking’. So he said, ‘no, no, say whatever you want but don’t give abuses’. So I said ‘okay paaji, I will tell him after the game, you go on and play’.

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“That’s all that happened, and I don’t know what he is thinking and bringing up this incident. This is the truth,” Sohail said.

“If there were any sort of abuses that happened between players, then the umpires, who are really strict towards the captains to maintain the code of conduct, they would have penalised. Now, I feel I have clarified this incident,” the former left-handed batsman signed off.

In that match, Sidhu scored a ton and so did Sachin Tendulkar. India had posted 305 runs and won the match while Pakistan managed to score only 227 runs.

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