Pakistan failed to put up a fight and lost to India by 89 runs in the battle of neighbours in the ongoing world cup on Sunday. Overcast conditions in Manchester forced the Pakistani captain Sarfaraz Ahmed to opt to bowl after winning the toss on a good batting wicket. Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul made the most of the conditions by putting a 136 run opening stand that set it up nicely for India. They went onto score 336/5 in their quota of 50 overs.
India lost Bhuvneshwar Kumar early in defending a score of 337 runs due to hamstring pull but Pakistani batsman failed to show the determination. Vijay Shankar struck on the first bowl of his spell and got rid of Imam-ul-Haq.
Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman showed some intent but the men in green got down like a pack of cards after Kuldeep Yadav and Hardik Pandya went through the middle order. It was always going to be an impossible task for lower order batsman to score runs with an average of over 10 per over and they eventually fell short by 89 runs.
Lots of questions were raised over the fitness of Pakistani players after losing the match by a comprehensive margin. Some fans accused the Pakistani players of having burgers, pizza, sweets and ice cream before the clash against India that made them unfit for the game. Some also accused senior batsman Shoaib Malik of smoking Hookah in a Sheesha bar few hours before match against India.
They also accused batsman Imam ul-Haq, all-rounder Imad Waseem, and bowler Wahab Riaz for smoking hookah alongside Shoaib at the sheesha bar at 2:00 am on Winslow Road in Manchester.
With hookah being a trending topic, let’s take a look at those Indian cricketers who smoke Hookah.
2- Ravindra Jadeja
The Indian all-rounder made headlines after he uploaded a photo where he was smoking a hookah. The photo was taken at the farm house of the 30-year-old.
“Bachpan kaali raaton mein or jawani kaale kaamo mein. #allblack #farmhouse #kiwimint #RajputBoy,” he captioned the photo.
This act of Jadeja was criticized by the cricket fans on the social media which forced him to delete the photo.
1- MS Dhoni
The name may come as a surprise to many but former Australia player George Bailey revealed that Dhoni bonds with the youngsters in the team over hookah. The Ranchi lad returned as the captain of the Indian team on September 25, 2018 after Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan were rested for the clash against Afghanistan in Asia Cup 2018.
Cricket Australia released a video which revealed some facts about the former India captain where George Bailey revealed that Dhoni used to bond with the youngsters over hookah in his room. Bailey played alongside Dhoni for Chennai Super Kings in IPL.
“He likes smoking a bit of the sheesha or the hookah. So, he quite often would set that up in his room, and it was very much open door policy. You would go in and quite often find a lot of younger players there. For India or lot of other cricket teams, it can be hierarchical, but he certainly broke that down,” Bailey said in the video
“You just find yourself in his room late at night chatting inevitably about the game or about different facets of the game or about different people and with different people it’s a great way to break down barriers,” he added.
