Shoaib Akhtar explains his relationship with the people of Kolkata

Shoaib Akhtar is unarguably one of the greatest players to have played for Pakistan. His pace is what gained him a lot of appreciation during his playing days. In fact, he has played in the Indian T20 league as well.

He represented Kolkata during the inaugural edition of the league, and played five games for them. The "Rawalpindi Express" recently drew light on how the people of Kolkata changed their perception of him. Akhtar spoke about his relationship with the people of that city, and how they went from hating him to loving him.

The legendary pacer was involved in the iconic India-Pakistan game in 1999 where he dismissed Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Even during the second innings of this Test, he ran out the Master Blaster as Pakistan went on to win the game by 46 runs. Thus, Akhtar spoke about how the people of Kolkata hated him for that, but then cheered for him when he was representing the Kolkata-based franchise during the Indian T20 league.

"Look, my relationship with Kolkata was a bit weird at first but came close later. It was weird at first because when I dismissed Sachin on the first ball and then was involved in his run-out, Kolkata hated me. I really liked the way Kolkata responded during the ITL. The whole of Bengal was chanting my name and Shahrukh was dancing. I couldn't believe this was the same Kolkata who had thrown bricks at me and now love me so much. Eden Gardens is one of my favourite grounds and that formed a bond which is strong till date," said Shoaib Akhtar while speaking to Sportskeeda.

Further on, he spoke about how he repaid the faith entrusted to him by Kolkata. Akhtar spoke about his spell against Delhi during the 2008 edition, where he picked a four-fer. He had dismissed Virender Sehwag, AB de Villiers, Gautam Gambhir and Manoj Tiwary.

"When I returned to Kolkata to play for Shahrukh Khan's team, people knew that I was coming back from a ban and that I hadn't trained and I was unfit. Only 132 (134) runs were needed (for the opponent) to win. But I ran-in really hard and stretched myself a lot. Everyone saw the effort and I finally felt that I had repaid the loan of Kolkata of that day when I dismissed Sachin and run him out. It developed a strong bond between us," he added.