Shoaib Akhtar's remark was a ploy to sell his book: Shah Rukh Khan

Actor Shah Rukh Khan feels that calling him a ‘cheater’ was a just a ploy devised by Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar to sell his autobiography. Shah Rukh, who appeared peeved at the way Shoaib had referred to him and then quickly retracted his statement, also said that he has nothing to do with him personally at any time even when he was a former player in his T20 team.

“I have heard that he has said something about me. I think whatever he has said is a ploy to sell his book. We should not be falling into the trap,” said Shah Rukh during a recent media interaction.

The star said that he doesn’t wish to react to the allegations made towards him. Before taking a sudden u-turn from his earlier statements, Shoaib had said that SRK ‘cheated’ him and he couldn’t play in the T20 tournament partly because of him, former T20 Commissioner Lalit Modi and the Pakistan Cricket Board. He then clarified later that Shah Rukh treated him like a ‘younger brother’.“I don’t have anything to  say to anything he says. If it is a ploy to sell his book then I am not participating. Lets move on to something more fruitful,” Shah Rukh said while fielding questions from the media.

However, the distaste that has grown over in Mumbai over Shoaib’s alleged remarks have now come back to haunt him as the organisers cancelled his book launch in Mumbai without even assigning any reason to it. “The scheduled release of Shoaib Akhtar's book in Mumbai on Sunday has suddenly been cancelled without any reason being given. Former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar was to release Akhtar's autobiography Controversially Yours at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) premises,” says an official of the club.

Sources said that it was particularly because of the jibe made towards Sachin Tendulkar (Shoaib allegedly said that the master blaster was afraid of facing him) and Rahul Dravid that the event was cancelled. “The jibe towards Shah Rukh rubbed salt to the injury and the book launch was immediately called off. Nobody made a call to anybody and we decided not to host somebody who belittles our national heroes,” an official of the CCI added.