Naveen Ul Haq, the Afghanistan pacer, is known for his spirit and liveliness both on the field and on social media. Everyone knows the battle on social media he had with Virat Kohli post the IPL 2023 spat with the Indian legend.
And now, Naveen turned his attention to the lack of support the Afghanistan team gets from big teams after they defeated Australia in the T20 World Cup Group 1 Super 8 stage in Arnos Vale on Saturday.
Afghanistan earned the historic 21-run win in Kingston after they posted 148/6 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first. Rahmanullah Gurbaz (60) and Ibrahim Zadran (51) were the stars with the bat, while Pat Cummins took his second hat-trick in as many matches.
In reply, Gulbadin Naib with 4/20 and Naveen with 3/20 played major role as Australia only managed 127 with Glenn Maxwell top-scoring with 59 runs. Australia lost by 21 runs, their first loss to Afghanistan in any format.
Naveen Ul Haq took to Instagram to remind that how Afghanistan have struggled for support during their meteoric rise, but when it comes to becoming a part of their success, there is no dearth of it.
Sharing a split image of a lone person sitting in an otherwise empty stand with the text ‘Support’ and a picture of a packed stadium with the text ‘Congratulations’, Naveen added the emoji of silence as the caption.
Here is the post:
This could be a sly dig at Australian team for cancelling their 3-ODI series against Afghanistan scheduled in the United Arab Emirates in 2023. Australia's decision to forfeit the series came after the Taliban declared limits on women's education and work in the country.
Ahead of Afghanistan’s ODI World Cup 2023 match against Australia, the right-arm pacer took a dig at Australia writing in his Instagram story, “Refusing to play the bilateral series, now it will be interesting to see cricket Australia stand in the World Cup. #standards, #humanrights or 2 points”.
