Imran Khan and PJ Mir on the Indian news channel NDTV: The ‘X’ Factor:
Indian and other media overplaying religious angle. The main reason the team lost badly in the World Cup was because they were poorly prepared and some of the selections were wrong. They also lost because of bad leadership. So let’s focus more on that aspect rather than religion. Islam is a liberal religion and in Islam there are complete provisions in times of necessity, travel etc. On tours you can pray during breaks. You don’t even have to pray at stipulated times, you can club your prayers together at the start or end of the day’s play. But if the players were coming off the field to pray while a game was going on then that’s completely wrong. When you are out there in the middle you should think cricket, eat cricket and talk cricket because that’s what you are paid to do. There’s a time for prayers and there’s a time for cricket. No one stops you from praying. Noone does that. But ‘sometimes that overt public display of religion went over the top during the World Cup.’ There is a clear injunction in the Holy Quran, “There is no compulsion in religion”. If players were being forced to pray or to be religious then it’s just not Islam.
PJ attacks chief investigating officer Mark Shields for giving exclusive interviews to Panorama when he had been clearly instructed by the Justice Department in Jamaica not to say anything on the matter until something had been proven. At the moment it’s all pure speculation and nothing is conclusive.
Re: Imran Khan and PJ Mir on religiosity in Pakistan Team
^ This is very recent, only a day old
Re: Imran Khan and PJ Mir on religiosity in Pakistan Team
btw those introductory comments are not my personal views (although I agree with a lot of it). That's just a summary of what Imran Khan and Paa Jee said on the show