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Former Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq issued a public apology a day after his controversial comment on Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan while using a poorly framed analogy. Razzaq's comments at a recent event which featured other former cricketers including Shahid Afridi and Umar Gul led to an outrage on social media. Even former cricketers criticised Razzaq for his nonsense comment.
“If your thinking is that you marry Aishwarya Rai and expect a pious and virtuous child to be born, then that can never happen,” Razzaq had said at the event while former Pakistan cricketers laughed.
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After facing a widespread backlash, Razzaq on Samaa TV apologised to Aishwarya. He stated, “Yesterday, we were talking about cricket coaching and intentions. I had a slip of tongue and mistakenly took Aishwarya Rai’s name. I apologise to her personally. I did not intend to hurt anyone’s sentiment.”
Razzaq’s former teammates Waqar Younis, Mohammad Yousuf and Shoaib Akhtar condemned his comments.
“Afridi Just saw this statement by Razzaq and I’m very disappointed and gutted. I condemn this terrible behaviour,” Younis wrote on X.
“As a cricketer I feel sorry that Abdul Razzaq made comments about Indian actress in a media talk. I hope he will be ashamed of what he said and apologize,” Yousuf wrote.
Akhtar went on to question the cricketers, who were in attendance for not raising their voice as he wrote, “I highly condemn the inappropriate joke/comparison made by Razzaq. No woman should be disrespected like this. People seated beside him should have raised their voice right away rather than laughing & clapping.”
On the other hand, Afridi claimed that he did not understand what Razzaq had said at the time sitting next to him. Later, he also bashed Razzaq for the weird comment after he saw the video clip that was making rounds on social media.
“I felt very weird that ’come on [what is this?]”, Afridi said as he wanted Razzaq to apologise.
“It was a wrong joke and such jokes should not be made,” he said.
However, this is not the first time Razzaq has been on the receiving end of backlash for his comments. In September 2021, he faced a PKR 2,00,000 fine for the remarks he made against Pakistan women's cricketer Nida Dar.
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