Former Indian World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev has urged India and Pakistan players to stick to sports and not involve politics in the game. In the opening group stage match of the Asia Cup on 14th September, Indian players had refused to shake hands with Pakistan players, which sparked a controversy.

Both teams were involved in verbal battles with Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill taking on Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf. Rauf also gestured to a controversial crashing plane when he was booed by the Indian crowd. 

Furthermore, Suryakumar Yadav said there is no rivalry between India and Pakistan as the matches haven’t been competitive. India has won their last seven games against the arch-rivals. Moreover, India refused to take the Asia Cup trophy from ACC and PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi after their five-wicket win in the final.

“I just want to say — your responsibility, and responsibility for the entire media also we should look into the sports side rather than looking into the politics side. Yes, media has the responsibility to bring everything on the table, but as a sportsman, I would like to see that we should stick to sports. It will be much better,” Kapil Dev said in an exclusive interview with India Today.

Meanwhile, Dev noted that Pakistan doesn’t have the same talent they used to have during the 1980s and 90s when they had a potent team at the top level.

“Yeah, I think they don’t have the similar talent they used to have in the ’80s, ’90s or before that. Pakistan has given us, to the world, one of the best cricketers. You can talk about Imran Khan, you can talk about Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis. They have given us that talent. But unfortunately, we can’t see similar talent today — not even one percent of what they used to have,” Kapil Dev added.

Pakistan will next host South Africa in two Test matches.