Uniting for a noble cause, India and Afghanistan cricket teams today joined forces appealing to parents to immunise their children against polio and end the crippling disease in the region once and for all. Team India sensations Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and Rohit Sharma met with Afghanistan team captain Nowroz Mangal and his mates Mohammad Shahzad, Karim Sadeq and Mohammad Ashghar Stanikzai in Colombo to exchange cricket bats signed by the members of the Twenty20 teams of both the countries, a UNICEF statement issued here said.
“The bats were exchanged as symbols of commitment of both the countries to end polio once and for all,” it said.
On the team’s return to their home countries, UNICEF will present the bats to the governments of Afghanistan and India to underline cricket’s support in the fight against polio. During the Afghanistan v/s India clash tomorrow in T20 World cup, beginning today, UNICEF with the support of the International Cricket Council (ICC) will display polio eradication messages on the electronic advertising boards and on the electronic scoreboard, the statement said.
The messages, in English, Hindi and Pashto, will express support for Afghanistan’s fight against polio and call on Afghan parents, in the local Pashto language, to immunise their children against polio, it informed. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only three remaining countries yet to stop poliovirus transmission.
India stopped polio in January 2011 and is now committed to supporting Pakistan and Afghanistan in eradicating the virus across south Asia, while maintaining very high levels of childhood immunity against polio through regular polio immunisation campaigns to guard against an importation of the virus, it maintained. Sehwag, a long-time supporter of the polio eradication effort, paid tribute to the parents and caregivers in India who had answered the call to immunise their children against polio, saying, “Stopping polio in India was like playing a long inning, it took a lot of focus and effort, but India has proven that this disease can be stopped everywhere in the world, once and for all. We support Afghanistan and Pakistan in their fight against this disease, so that soon no child in the region is ever needlessly paralysed by polio again.” UNI