Indians not as large hearted as Pakistanis: Afridi

ISLAMABAD: Days after winning the hearts of numerous Indian fans with his remarks after his team's loss in the World Cup semifinal, Pakistan cricket captain Shahid Afridi has said Indians are not as large-hearted as Pakistanis.

Afridi also slammed the Indian media for its "very negative approach" and said the Pakistani media was a "hundred times better" than its Indian counterpart.

"In my opinion, if I have to tell the truth, they (Indians) will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don't think they have the large and clean hearts that Allah has given us," Afridi said during a talk show on Samaa news channel when he was asked about relations between the two countries.

"It is a very difficult thing for us to live with them (Indians) or to have long-term relationship with them. Nothing will come out of talks. See how many times in the past 60 years we have had friendship and then how many times things have gone bad," he said as the audience in the TV channel's studio applauded him repeatedly.

"We don't want to fight with each other but a third country - everyone knows which one it is - is trying to spoil our relations. (This country) is taking advantage of Pakistan and wants to take advantage of India. I don't want to go into details but these people will not let us come together," he added.

Asked about the Indian media's coverage of the Pakistani team during the semifinal with India at Mohali on March 30, Afridi replied: "The Indian media has a very negative approach and very negative thoughts. The people may not be like that but I think the media had a very dirty role in spoiling relations between us and India.

"Our media, which is criticised by people, is hundred times better than theirs," he said.

India beat Pakistan in the semifinal, which was watched by the Prime Ministers of the two countries, who used cricket diplomacy to boost the peace process between the two sides.

Afridi also criticised Interior Minister Rehman Malik for warning the Pakistani team not to get involved in match-fixing and Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who vowed to dedicate victory in the World Cup final to victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

"I think they were both very stupid comments by Rehman Malik and Gautam Gambhir...I wasn't expecting this from Gautam...This is all politics, what do you know about who carried out the Bombay attacks?" he said.