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Published 20 Jan, 2024 05:19pm

A brief history of Pakistan cricketers’ cross-border love

Soon after cricketer Shoaib Malik went public with his marriage to actress Sana Javed, Indian tennis star Sania Mirza’s father on Saturday confirmed the divorce of her daughter from the former captain of the Pakistan team.

Malik tied the knot for a second time, over a year after reports claimed he had separated from his first wife Mirza.

They remained the most high-profile couple India-Pakistan has seen after the two got married in 2010.

However, Malik is not the first Pakistani cricketer to have been married to an Indian woman as there have been cross-border celebrity love and marriages in the past.

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Pakistani cricket legend Mohsin Khan married Bollywood actress Reena Roy in 1983.

Soon after the marriage, Roy quit Bollywood, however, the marriage could not last and the two separated. The two have a daughter together.

Cricketer Hasan Ali also fell in love with an Indian national Samiya Arzoo. The two met each other in Dubai and got married in 2019.

Arzoo hails from India’s Faridabad and is a flight engineer with Emirates Airlines. The couple are parents to a baby girl named Helena Hasan Ali.

While it was never admitted by either party, Pakistan cricket great and former prime minister Imran Khan and Bollywood legend Zeenat Aman were allegedly in love in the late eighties.

The two reportedly met during Pakistan’s tour to India in the 1980s and dated for a while.

Khan later married Jemima Goldsmith. They separated in the later years and Goldsmith returned to her home country along with their two sons.

Khan’s teammate Wasim Akram was also reported to have found love in Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen. The king-of-swing has continuously denied having any love affair with the actress and said that the two were good friends.

Akram is now married to Aussie national Sheniera Thompson.

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