Shoaib Akhtar says ICC has ‘thrown neutrality out of the window’ after being trolled

Former Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Akhtar took a dig at the International Cricket Council after the official Twitter account of the cricket body had trolled the pacer over a tweet on Tuesday.

The Rawalpindi Express on Wednesday took to Twitter to point out that the ICC has “thrown neutrality out of the window” and how it is partial towards certain teams and players after he was trolled over a tweet.

“A symbolic tweet, how ICC has thrown neutrality out of the window. Basically this is how the state of affairs are run there,” Akhtar tweeted.

Akhtar, on Monday, had said that he can dismiss Australian’s Steve Smith in the fourth ball after three “hurting bouncers”, in response to a tweet by ESPNcricinfo which had posted an image of 20 players, asking fans to pick just one contest between a batsman and a bowler. The Pakistani pacer was paired with the star batsman.

The ICC, responding to Akhtar, had posted memes of basketball legend Michael Jordan laughing at the tweet, mocking the pacer for claiming that he could dismiss Smith.

Akhtar is quite active on social media and sharing his views on cricket at the domestic and international level on his YouTube channel. He has previously said that he was surprised at Smith’s batting technique or the lack of it.

“I am surprised how he does it. Steve Smith, you must have seen, he has no technique, style but yet very effective,” he had said in a video. “If he was playing in my time, would have definitely hit him. I would have tried to hurt him.”