One of the Afghanistan national cricket team’s current best players in white-ball cricket, all-rounder Gulbadin Naib recently spoke about the Pakistan vs Afghanistan and India vs Afghanistan rivalry in the world of cricket.
The 33-year-old shared his views in an interview during the ongoing ILT20 2025. The statement comes from the less than a month before their ICC Champions Trophy 2025 campaign in Pakistan. Naib along with his Afghan ODI team will play all there three group-stage games against South Africa, England, and Australia in Pakistan.
In an exclusive interview with media outlet CricTracker, Naib was asked to choose between which is the most intense rivalry, the one between Pakistan and Afghanistan, or the one between India and Afghanistan. Laughingly the all-rounder said, “It’s a tough question. Because if you go to the audience, people like to see us playing matches against Pakistan, because we enjoy playing with them. They are a loving cricketing nation. We enjoy playing with India as well because Pakistan and India are cricketing nations, loving cricketing nations, people enjoy cricket a lot.”
After choosing the rivalry with Pakistan to be the most intense one, Naib also shared further his experience against both sides, saying he enjoyed both. He praised the Indian crowd in front of whom Afghanistan played, saying, “even when we were playing the last T20 series in India, we couldn’t believe that we were playing at their home… the crowd we saw.”
He threw more light on the rivalry with Pakistan saying why they enjoy playing their neighbours. He said, “when we were playing in Pakistan, or when we played matches with Pakistan in Dubai, they enjoy a lot. People are entertained. People get to see things like this, and they enjoy cricket. And we want to play more against the big teams because the more we play the better it is for the players. So I think we like to play with Pakistan.”
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