ISLAMABAD: Pakistani speedster Shaheen Shah Afridi on Friday dismissed concerns about unity within the national cricket team ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup, saying there was no discord within the squad where every player was focusing on winning the big tournament next month.

Afridi was appointed as the T20I captain after Babar Azam announced his decision to step down following the team’s underperformance in last year’s Asia Cup, hosted by Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as the ODI World Cup played in India. However, his tenure was brief and ended in March 2024, following Pakistan’s 4-1 defeat in the T20I series against New Zealand.

Azam was brought back to lead the national team, but the leadership change was surrounded by contentious statements that triggered a debate about the lack of solidarity within the team.

“If there are ever small misunderstandings, these happen in every family,” he said during his appearance on the Pakistan Cricket Board’s podcast focusing on his career and the team’s ongoing dynamics. “And when there are brothers, they also sometimes have disagreements over little things. But thankfully, there is nothing like that in this team.”

“Our effort is always to play with unity,” he continued. “This is not the time where there can be argument or discord. This is a time when everyone has to be involved in one process, moving together with unity toward achieving the same goal.”

Afridi said he had fully recovered from his injury last year.

He maintained it was the team’s “job to play cricket and bring joy to our nation.”

“We are also tired of telling people that we will win the World Cup,” he said with a smile. “But God willing, this time we will make this happen.”

KARACHI: Pakistan has expressed support for a “historic” call by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to admit the state of Palestine as a full member, the Foreign Office (FO) in Islamabad said on Friday, urging the UN Security Council to decide the matter “favorably.”

The UNGA last week overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it was qualified to join and recommending the UNSC “reconsider the matter favorably.” The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.

“Pakistan supports the historic call made by the UN general assembly made at the 10th emergency session to admit the state of Palestine as a full member,” FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told reporters at a weekly press briefing.

“The resolution determined that the state of Palestine is qualified for membership of the UN and recommended the security council to decide the matter favorably.”

Baloch said the UNSC had been provided another opportunity to lift its objections to the admission of Palestine to the UN and “restore the credibility of the assurances that have been given in support of the two-state solution.”

The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers illegal.

Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly civilians after the war broke on Oct 7 when Hamas fighters stormed across the border into Israel.

Pakistan does not recognize the state of Israel and calls for an independent Palestinian state based on internationally agreed parameters and the pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.