Islamabad, July 13: Javed Miandad, the irrepressible Pakistan cricketer, says he suffered a rare embarrassment and learnt a lesson on patriotism during the 1986-87 tour of India when Mohinder Amarnath gave him an on-the-pitch tongue lashing for making deriding remarks against India. Miandad, the self confessed inventor of sledging, "reached his boiling" point when Amarnath got the better off him at the Jaipur Test, which was witnessed among others by Pakistan's late military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.
"The two teams were on the edge with each other and the atmosphere was tense. At one point, I was fielding close in and was airing my feeling to the batsman, who happened to be Mohinder Amarnath," writes Miandad in his autobiography 'Cutting Edge'. "When Mohinder survived what I thought was yet another very legitimate appeal, I reached boiling point. I used an expletive to describe India and Mohinder heard it. Calmly, he walked up to me and said, 'look Javed call me anything you want but don't say a word against my country'," recollects Miandad.
"That affected me deeply. I have always regarded my own country as being above everything except allah. I was embarrassed that i hadn't respected Mohinder's right to feel the same way about his country. I immediately apologised to him," writes Miandad in the 321-page book. True to his "Pakistani spirit", Miandad has devoted a special chapter to pakistan-india encounters and titled it 'Wars with India'. Bureau Report