Taliban: Stop praising Sachin Tendulkar

The Pakistan Taliban have posted an unusual video asking people in the country to stop celebrating the career of Sachin Tendulkar.The cricket world has lined up to pay tribute to India’s Tendulkar, one of the greatest players of all time, who retired earlier this month.However, the Pakistan Taliban clearly feel the idolising has gone too far, and asking people in the country to instead focus on their own team despite labelling their captain Misbah-ul-Haq as a "substandard and low-level player".Flanked by two masked men with AK-47s, the spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban Shahidullah Shahid make the request in a video message."There is an Indian cricket player called Tendulkar. He has been exceedingly praised by Pakistani media and also praised by a lot of Pakistanis," he said in the video."Now someone should tell Pakistani media and other Pakistanis that no matter how good Tendulkar is, they should not praise him, it is against Pakistani nationalism and against loyalty to the country."No matter that Misbah-ul-Haq is a substandard and low-level player, Pakistani media should praise him because he is a Pakistani."Shahid confirmed to the AFP news agency that the video was genuine.Tendulkar left the game after playing more Test matches (200), scoring the most Test (15,921) and one-day international (18,426) runs, and compiling more Test (51) and one-day (49) hundreds than any other player in cricket history.(uk.eurosport.yahoo.com)ANN.Az