Just over 12 hours after guiding Pakistan to a 6-wicket victory over Sri Lanka with his brilliant century, Mohammad Rizwan created a massive controversy with his tweet on the ongoing Gaza–Israel violent conflict.
Gaza is one of two Palestinian territories which is involved in a horrific war with Israel at the moment. It has been reported that 1,055 people have died and another 5,184 have been injured in Gaza since Saturday. The world remains divided over the attacks between Gaza and Israel.
In his tweet, Mohammad Rizwan dedicated his century and Pakistan’s victory “for our brothers and sisters in Gaza”.
Rizwan tweeted: “This was for our brothers and sisters in Gaza.
Happy to contribute in the win. Credits to the whole team and especially Abdullah Shafique and Hassan Ali for making it easier.
Extremely grateful to the people of Hyderabad for the amazing hospitality and support throughout.”
This could land him in trouble with the ICC, especially now after the Indians brought up the fact that ICC had set a precedent when telling MS Dhoni to remove an army insignia from his wicketkeeping gloves during the 2019 World Cup.
At that time, MS Dhoni had accepted ICC’s order to not make any political gestures, especially when playing in an ICC tournament. Now, this tweet from Mohammad Rizwan has created chaos on Twitter, with Indian fans slamming him for showing support to Gaza, which is home to the Hamas terrorists.
Fans recall incident with MS Dhoni in 2019 after Mohammad Rizwan’s tweet for Gaza:
One fan tweeted: “dhoni was forced to removed the gloves having the logo of army balidan and icc had a saying indians are making political statement in the world cup yesterday mhd rizwan scored a century which he dedicated to the people of Palestine is this fair ??? Pls look into this ?”
Another fan tagged ICC, saying: “Can’t alow Army insignia on MS Dhoni’s gloves, but mohammad rizwan can make political religious comment during icc tournaments, Slow claps for @ICC & @BCCI”
It is believed that ICC had strictly told cricketers and coaches to not make any political and religious statements during ICC tournaments. Fans await on what the governing body will do with Rizwan’s tweet.
