Viral Indian rapper Om Prakash Mishra trends after Pakistan accuses India of sabotaging New Zealand’s tour – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Things haven’t gone smoothly for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in recent weeks after New Zealand’s sudden pullout from their scheduled limited-overs tour of the country.

The Black Caps pulling out of the series shortly before the first one-day international in Rawalpindi was to begin was followed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) deciding against sending its men’s and women’s teams, though they didn’t specify security fears like their New Zealand counterparts, instead citing workload and mental health issues.

Pakistan, since then, has come up with a variety of responses, including newly-elected chairman Ramiz Raja slamming New Zealand, England and the rest of the “western bloc” of trying to defame Pakistan at a time when the country was starting to find its feet as a cricketing host.

The last few days, however, have seen India being thrown into the discussion surrounding the cancellation of the tours, though accusations against the neighbouring country had so far been restricted to social media. On Wednesday, however, the Pakistan government took the formal step of naming India as the perpetrator behind the threatening mails sent to the New Zealand contingent, including to the wife of batter Martin Guptill.

What’s more, the name of a viral Indian rapper Om Prakash Mishra also started trending after Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry made the accusations against India in a press conference. In the press conference, Chaudhry stated that the threats were issued using fake email addresses with the name Hamza Afridi while employing a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that showed Singapore being shown as the location.

“The device used to send the threat to the New Zealand team belonged to India. A fake ID was used but it was sent from Maharashtra,” Chaudhry was quoted as saying. What caught the attention of several netizens, however, was Mishra’s name and a screengrab from his music video that came up in the visuals during the announcement. Needless to say, the Indian Twitterati had a field day from thereon.  

Mishra went viral on social media after the massive success of his music video in 2017, which was at that time the latest entry in Indian cringe pop — songs so bad in quality that one cannot help but listen to them multiple times. The song ‘Aunty Ki Ghanti’ however, was also criticised for being crass and for its misogynistic undertones.