Mumbai: A country which marks various ethnic and religious minorities beneath the turf of severe discrimination; the decision of enclosing a ‘sikh’ into the account imprints a strong declaration under the roof of cricket.
Mahinder Pal Singh, of Pakistan is the first person from the Sikh community to make into the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Also, he is the part of PCBs top 30 emerging cricketers of the country according to Geo News reports.
“I am proud to make into the Pakistan Cricket Academy, and I am proud to represent the entire Sikh community of the country,” said Singh in a Tweet post.
The history maker promises to make his country proud in the coming future. Further he expressed his gratitude towards his coaches and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Shahryar Khan for trusting on his abilities and giving him the opportunity.
According to Western religious freedom and human rights monitoring groups, religious minorities face hard-nosed discrimination in Pakistan. Farahnaz Ispahani, who was the media advisor to the president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2012 claimed that the population of Pakistan’s religious minorities has declined from 23% in 1947 to around 3-4% of the population today.
So under such mortifying conditions, Mahinder’s entry on the expected path is alluring all the news flash. Even though Pakistan and so the team is crowded with Muslim population, it isn’t the first case of ‘minority on priority’ by cricket selectors. There have been many non-Muslim cricketers in Pakistan’s history who have played at the international level and brought glory to their side.
Such players include- Wallis Mathias, Duncan Sharpe, Antao D’Souza, Anil Dalpat, Sohail Fazal, Danish Kaneria and Yousuf Youhana (now Mohammad Yousuf). With this advent, Mahinder links himself in this chain of Non-Muslim player as the eighth hook.
Cricket has always shown its competence in maintaining its grip on the hearts and minds of the Pakistani nation and so the Lahore boy successfully managed to rule the cognizance of the selectors and Pakistani cricket fans.