In a huge revelation, Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, who’s married to Indian tennis star Sania Mirza, has reportedly said that his first child will neither be Indian nor Pakistani.
The couple’s child will have the nationality of some other country, claimed several Pakistani media reports including Express Tribune and Dubai’s Khaleej Times.
The 36-year-old Pakistani cricketer said that he could not wait to welcome the new baby while asking his fans to pray for them at this special time. Shoaib also said that he had taken special permission from the Pakistani team management to be with his pregnant wife, Sania.
Speaking to reporters at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium, Shoaib said, “I have taken permission from the team management to remain with my wife at the time of birth.”
This follows Sania’s comments that the couple’s new child will carry the double-barrelled surname ‘Mirza-Malik. She had said, “I will tell you a secret. My husband and I have spoken about it and we have decided that whenever we have a child, the child will have Mirza-Malik as a surname and not just Malik. So that’s where we stand as a family. He actually wants a daughter.”
She had added, “I have not changed my surname (post marriage). My name is still Sania Mirza and it will remain that way. The family name is going to go forward.”
Sania, meanwhile, posted a video, where she was seen cutting a cake. The tennis star wrote that while she missed her ‘life (read Shoaib Malik),’ but duty must ‘come first.’ The video was made during Sania’s baby shower party.
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Posting more photos and a video from the baby shower party, Sania wrote, “We come in all shapes and sizes but these are all my constants ❤️? thank you guys.”
In April this year, eight years after her marriage with Shoaib, Sania had taken to social media to post a photo of what looked like a collage of three dressing rooms. While on the right, her cricketer husband Shoaib Malik’s jersey was shown hanging along with a water bottle and neatly folded towels, ‘Mirza-Malik’s’ bodysuit was shown hanging in the centre. The water bottle on top was replaced by a baby’s feeding bottle. And to the left, it was Sania’s own jersey with everything else being the same as that of her cricketer husband.