I think there’s something universal about religious people being suspicious of anything non-religious which inspires actual devotion. It’s not just Islam. Looking at Christianity and Judaism, the Bible says (in Exodus 20:3) “You shall have no other gods before me” - not even Freddie.

As another example, the reverend at my church (who is no right-winger) always hopes the local (American) football team will lose, because they always play on Sunday, and if they’re fun to watch it can keep people out of church. So it’s not just Islam.

Having said that, though, I sometimes speculate that the real wacko Islamofascists like Bin Laden (and I’m not saying that the guy in the article is anything like him) probably hate cricket - not just because it’s a distraction from their religion, but also because it peacefully brings together people with different ideas. I think it’s probably just a coincidence, though, that they nearly murdered Pakistan’s cricket team (and New Zealand’s) in 2002.
Here’s a refresher if you don’t remember the incident: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/05/09/wpak09.xml

spent a little less time.. not grew a little less time… lol..

Funny though that he should call cricket or sport a waste of time, some of Holy Prophet’s closest companions were known to be very keen on sports played in their times (including wrestling and horse riding and fencing). Some records have it that even the Prophet PBUH him self enjoyed such sports.

From what I’ve learned, this man has been brain washed, but thankfully such people are in minority.

I’ll give you a good example, remember the last day of the wonderful Bangalore test match against India this year? It was on a Friday. Friday is when Zuhur prayers are compulsory to attend in a mosque for men. Zuhur prayer time was just about the time the match was really starting to get into high level tension zone, with Sehwag having been run out and Afridi getting into the heat of things.

One passionate fan, who was following the game, like countless others, wrote next day in Dawn of how the Imam leading the prayers in one local mosque mentioned cricket in his sermon and made special prayers at the end.

This is the real measure of how much people love the game, not that 25-year-old Ali from Peshawar. Even the religious people love the game here, and that’s a fact (sight me as an example if you will). Ali, belongs to that small group who claim to be religious and try to imply that a large variety of things are a waste of time (including cricket), these are the kind that of people that I don’t like to argue with, because I consider it a waste of my time.

I have discussed this issue with a link back to this page here.

It seems incredulous to me that BBC could interview this man, then could not interview another person as to what they thought of the talib’s comments.