Islamabad, Feb.10 (ANI): While the Pakistan cricket team is receiving flak for its abysmal show Down Under, the chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee Jamshed Ahmed Dasti has thrown his support behind some of the beleaguered cricketers.

Dasti said the team should look forward and players should try to give off their best in forthcoming assignments.

“The Australian cricket series is ‘a relic of the past’ and we should look forward,” Dasti said.

Dasti said people should stop bashing the cricketers, as they have given their best in the past and done the country proud on several occasions.

“We should give due respect to every player especially Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Yousuf and Kamran Akmal. These players have brought laurels for the country in the past and criticising them for one poor show is unfair and unjust,” The Dawn quoted Dasti, as saying.

Commenting on Shahid Afridi’s disgraceful act of chewing the ball during the last one-day international against Australia at Perth, Dasti said the Afridi might have been under tremendous pressure, and that the act was not deliberate.

“I am sure it was all in utter frustration and heat of the moment which forced him (Afridi) to go for an action which is not a deliberate one,” he said.

Afridi has already been banned for two Twenty20 internationals after being found guilty of ball-tampering charges. (ANI)