Shoaib weds Sania

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
HYDERABAD, India: Shoaib Malik and Indian tennis star Sania Mirza married on Monday after a troubled engagement in a union that bridges the two nations’ bitter sporting and political divide.

The wedding was the final chapter in a complex and often contradictory saga during which Shoaib consistently denied claims by an Indian woman, Ayesha Siddiqui, that she had married the cricketer in 2002.

The ceremony took place in the presence of family and friends at a hotel in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, Mirza’s spokeswoman Rucha Naik told reporters. “The (wedding) has just been completed. Please pray for the couple,” Naik said.

The marriage was originally scheduled for April 15. Family sources say it had been brought forward after Muslim clerics in Hyderabad criticised the fact that Shoaib was living in his future bride’s house before the wedding.

Last week, Farisa Siddiqui, Ayesha’s mother, announced that a settlement had been reached and “divorce papers signed,” allowing Malik’s marriage with Sania to go ahead. Ayesha had initially lodged a complaint with police in Hyderabad, prompting officers to quiz Malik over the saga and confiscate his passport.

Muslim elders in Hyderabad, where both Ayesha and Sania live, were understood to have negotiated the settlement after days of frenzied press coverage and lurid speculation. Even without the added drama provided by Ayesha’s revelations, the marriage of two of South Asia’s best-known sports personalities across one of the world’s most volatile borders was always going to make headlines.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence and broke off all official contact following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which Indian blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The stand-off extended to the sporting world, with a freeze on non-tournament matches between their respective national cricket teams. Shoaib and Sania’s sporting marriage is unprecedented in the perennial rivalry between the south Asian nations, and some right-wing Hindu groups in India had denounced the union, accusing Sania of betraying her country.

The only similar union came when former Pakistani test batsman Mohsin Khan, who is now Pakistan’s chief selector, married the Indian actress Reena Roy in the 1980s. The couple later separated.

Sania, whose short tennis skirts have drawn the ire of Islamist groups in India, has been a nationwide celebrity since 2005 when, aged 18, she became the first Indian woman to win a WTA Tour title.

She is currently recovering from a wrist injury that has seen her world ranking slip from 27 in 2007 to 89. Shoaib, a former captain of the Pakistan cricket team, is serving a year-long ban for indiscipline.

The couple, who are both Muslims, are thought likely to base themselves in Dubai. Shoaib had admitted beginning a telephone relationship with Ayesha in 2001 after she sent him photographs — but said he later believed the pictures were of another woman. Before the divorce settlement, Ayesha appeared on television news channels to denounce Malik as a cheat who dumped her because his teammates said she was overweight.

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HYDERABAD, India: India’s tennis star Sania Mirza and former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik smile during their wedding ceremony at a local hotel here on Monday