Former Pakistani leg-spinner Danish Kaneria is one of the two Hindu players to play international cricket for Pakistan, which is a majorly Islamic country. The only other and the first Hindu cricketer to play international cricket for Pakistan was Kaneria’s cousin, wicketkeeper Anil Dalpat.

Kaneria had a chequered career maligned by his admission of his role in the spot-fixing scandal. In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Kaneria admitted that he induced a teammate at Essex County Cricket Club to underperform for money paid by a notorious bookmaker.  

For this, he was banned from cricket by the ECB and his ban was also recognized by the Pakistan Cricket Board. His career came to an end with 261 wickets in 61 Tests and 15 wickets in 18 ODI matches.

"I would like to visit Ayodhya when opportunity comes", says ex-Pakistan spinner Danish Kaneria

Since then, he has been very vocal about the treatment he received from the PCB and also had asked the board to let him get involved with coaching younger talents, especially after the board allowed other cricketers to come back into the game.

Meanwhile, he has also accused the board and some players of discriminating against him given that he is a Hindu. Kaneria recently took to Twitter and wished everyone a very happy Diwali in a short video posted on his official account.

Apart from this, he also had a cheeky message for his fans and followers, which read, “Patakhe jalao patakhe...sath me kuch or bhi jalega”

There was no explanation of what or whom he was targeting with this message, but there had been lots of calls by celebrities and other people asking the public, especially in India to refrain from bursting crackers, citing COVID-19, and air pollution issues. This included a message from Indian captain Virat Kohli as well.