another shoaib post

Here's a well-articulated argument on Five Rupees against Shoaib Akhtar's inclusion in the Pakistan side. Well, far be it from me to shy away from an opportunity for such ripe debate.

I'm not sure I can pick holes in Ahsan's individual arguments per se. In any case, as he says, it's unlikely that either of us will change our opinion. But I can say that I am one of the few remaining Pakistanis who are just not ready to cut the cord. And in this capacity, I have a few points to make:

1. Maybe Shoaib does play 29% of our cricket. But more often than not, when he plays, he delivers. Bear with me while I do a bit of math. If he puts in a great performance 75% of the time he plays, then he delivers on 22% of the days on which Pakistan plays. That is probably more than Razzaq and both our openers put together.

I watch cricket to be excited. To feel it in my gut when a Pakistani shatters an Aussie's stumps, for example. And no bowler, as you mention, has been able to make me feel that more effectively than Shoaib over the past 10 years. If 29 out of every 100 days of cricket I watch is exciting, then so be it. It's better than the tepid half-ass way our team usually plays (the recent two-game streak excluded).

2. Yes, Shoaib is a prima donna. Yes, he has had problems with drugs. And yes he has, for lack of a better word, grown somewhat corpulent over the years. I have made this point before, but to me that sounds a lot like Shane Warne, minus the match-fixing allegations. Besides, isn't it the job of captain and coach to tame stupidity and bring it in line? Perhaps we need to focus on good leadership, rather than hoping for a team that is easy to lead.

3. The unfortunate reality is that none of our current players is about the nuts and bolts of the game. A simple look at our fielding will attest to that. What has plagued Pakistan most since Imran gave up the captaincy is a lack of focus on the nitty gritty of the game, and an over-reliance on talent. We have seen repeatedly with this team that talent can only take you so far. Can any of us say with a straight face that Inzamam was an "athlete"?

4. We may not have issues with his supposed playboy lifestyle, but sadly, (and as much as I am an Inzi fan) I suspect that this is a large part of why Inzamam took offense at his presence. I believe that the team is a perfect microcosm, a scale replica, if you will, of the rest of the country. What we see could be Shoaib taking out his frustrations at this ideological divide. Of course, nobody can be sure, but I do know this much: If I were kicked out of my job because I liked playing Grand Theft Auto in my free time, for example, I would be pretty frustrated too.

only the nandrolonely

These steroids sure are taking a long time to wear off. It's been nearly a year now. He must have taken enough to kill about ten horses. Either that or he's been popping pills the whole time he's been away from cricket.

Either way, it is an impressive dosage, and if he can still play cricket after this, I can only applaud him. Only Shoaib could pull off a feat like that.

Bravo!

a tale of two pities

As the World Cup draws near, we are being hit every day with news of another player that must miss out for such and such reason. Each of these incidents is a shame, because the whole point of the tournament is to bring together the best talent in the world. But few are as interesting as the two most recent tragedies.

First, it's official. Shoaib and Asif are out, due to "injury." I put the word in quotation marks because I, like many, don't believe they are really injured. The conspiracy theory, for anyone who hasn't heard it yet, basically says that they are waiting till the nandrolone is completely flushed out of their bodies before they test. That way they might miss the World Cup, but won't have to deal with the prospect of a life ban.

Meanwhile, around 8000 miles away, New Zealand's Jacob Oram is grappling with a personal dilemma of his own. Having fractured his ring finger, Oram has been told by doctors that he will have to sit out the World Cup. But with himself and the rest of his team in tremendous form, Oram is so desperate to play that he is considering amputating the finger in question.

So here's a pair of players that are feigning injury to avoid having to take a urine sample for the duration of the World Cup. And there's another who is willing to injure himself just for the chance to play.

Here's a couple of men who have tried to patch up numerous problems by piling complication upon complication. And there's a man who knows how to cut to the chase. Literally.

Surely there's some middle ground somewhere.

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cross-posted at cricket.bloggers.pk

blood will have blood

Shoaib, Asif to Get Complete Transfusion from Razzaq's Blood

In order to remove all traces of Nandrolone from their urine in record time, the PCB has launched an incredible and impressive secret campaign. Adbul Razzaq, an important, yet replaceable, member of the squad, conveniently fractured his knee just minutes before leaving for the Caribbean. In an interview, he appeared completely befuddled as to how it happened. Chloroform, anyone?

Meanwhile, the rest of the squad, including the reserves, and even a few spectators, have already pissed in cups and been cleared by some drug testing authority in Malaysia. Wasn't the movie "Entrapment", starring Sean Connery, filmed in Malaysia? Didn't Connery play Bond for a while? Wasn't "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" the worst film ever made? Exactly. That's shady too.

Doctors in England will be performing the world's first (maybe 100th – who knows, first sounds better) complete blood transfusion and muscle sieving procedure to remove the controversial nandrolone from Asif and Shoaib's bodies. They will then use Abdul Razzaq's blood to fill them up again. It's dramatic, it's crazy, but it just might work. As long as they don't somehow infuse the two with Razzaq's somewhat insipid bowling ability, it sounds completely foolproof.

Of course, questions abound. Is the procedure safe? In particular, will Razzaq survive after donating every ounce of his blood? The answer is: who gives? We've got Azhar, haven't we? They're practically the same person.

If all goes well, Shoaib and Asif will be nandrolone-free and ready to roll when Pakistan take on the Windies in a couple of weeks. In fact, they might as well pop a few more doses while they're at it.

co-authored by Omar

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cross-posted at Omar Loves Cricket and cricket.bloggers.pk

the splinter of our discontent

In this post, Teeth Maestro refutes my (and to some extent, Omar's) argument that Shoaib Akhtar should play on the Pakistan team based on performance and not personality. His point is that Shoaib’s unruliness and disregard for authority splinters the Pakistan team, generating a lack of discipline and unity.

As usual, I have something to say about this.

First, I agree that a side needs to be, as Mr. Maestro puts it, a “coherent organization”. But one rogue character does not an incoherent organization make. There are far worse things for our team’s collective coherence than Shoaib. Nasim Ashraf is one of these things. His shady dealings with Waqar and the doping scandal, for example, must surely have divided opinion among the players, and can hardly be considered good for team spirit or morale. Why blame Shoaib for the team's lack of discipline as a unit, when the management's divisiveness is so painfully blatant?

Mr. Maestro also argues that Inzi and Woolmer should have all the power to administer the team. I agree, but implicit in his statement is an assumption that without Shoaib’s antics, they would have this power. This is naïve. It is a well-known fact that the PCB clings firmly to the reigns of power in Pakistan cricket. Removing Shoaib is not going to change that.

On another note, perhaps there is another side to the Shoaib story that we are not seeing. Why is Shoaib so frustrated as to be perpetually fighting with Woolmer? It seems nobody is sparing a thought for the way the management may have been treating him. Sure, he is aggressive by nature, but at least some of his actions must be provoked. Quiet provocation by Woolmer and/or the PCB may be less obvious to the naked eye, but isn’t it possible there may be something in it that is going unnoticed?

Shoaib is our best bowler, and every effort should be made to accommodate him in every game we play. Does nobody find it at all surprising that this is not happening? That he is, in fact, being discouraged from playing, through a combination of childish he-said-she-saids? These shady reports about how he is "also carrying a knee injury" and is therefore "not guaranteed" to play in the World Cup are suspicious and need to be investigated, instead of just saying: "Well, he was an arrogant prick anyway, so good riddance."

The PCB exists to protect the players’ interests, not undermine them, and certainly not to conduct personal feuds with them. When the latter starts to happen, it is time for us to demand an explanation. We should support our players, rather than the crooks that run their careers into the ground.

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cross-posted at cricket.bloggers.pk

arrogance shmarrogance

I am sick of people saying:

"Shoaib Akhtar is arrogant and therefore should not play."

It is idiotic. Since when did humility become a prerequisite for playing cricket, or any sport for that matter? These players are supposed to be professionals. This is their job. If Shoaib is arrogant, don't go to dinner with him, or invite him over to play with your kids. But surely you can work with him. God knows we've all worked with a few arrogant idiots from time to time.

I am not a fan of Shoaib's antics. But his 'arrogance' does tend to make him an exciting player to watch. He is a celebrity and a superstar, and every now and then he should be allowed to act like one. The way his career has been manhandled says less about him and more about the disastrous state of man management in the PCB (and in Pakistan in general, for that matter).

It is a pity that the PCB has not learned to deal with Shoaib the way the Australians managed to deal with Warne. The Aussies did so well, in fact, that a man who has been found guilty of both match-fixing and doping is still hailed as a hero around the world. There are other circumstances at play here of course (the Australian media is a tad more influential than the Pakistani media, for example) but even so, Shoaib is lucky if he gets respect from his own countrymates.

So what if he's arrogant? He's the best bowler we have (sorry Asif, but it's true). Unless I'm missing something, the team that goes out to represent Pakistan should consist of its best players, not its most humble. Otherwise we may as well just send out a bunch of 11 beard-toting, God-fearing mullahs and see how they do.

Oh, wait... we already did...

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cross-posted at cricket.bloggers.pk

will shoaib get fucked?

I'm sorry.

Call me juvenile, but this photograph may turn out to be quite prophetic in answering the aforementioned question.

I continue to wonder what will happen with this whole affair. Bob Woolmer has gone on the record saying he supports the decisions of both tribunals, which, umm, is a bit daft, given that they both handed out completely opposite sentences.

My guess is the ICC won't let this one slide. They already feel like the PCB has bullied them enough over the past few months (on which count I disrepectfully disagree). They will use the WADA excuse to push their weight around on this.

If the players do end up getting fucked, though, it will be unfair to them. They were made scapegoats in the PCB's unprecedented and unjustified campaign to promote justice and virtue. Regardless of whether or not they intentionally took nandrolone, they did not get a proper first trial; and it was the impropriety of the first that set the tone for the second.

Unfortunately, neither justice nor virture will prevail. If Shoaib and Asif were innocent, then their legacy has been unnecessarily tarnished; if guilty, then two intentional dopers are now openly allowed to play.

The PCB, on the other hand, deserves whatever it gets. I have tried to be supportive of them, but there's only so much incompetence I can take. The sad part is that they are likely to come out of all this relatively unscathed.

a bunch of dopes

I have watched events unfold in the Shoaib/Asif scandal with a fair bit of incredulity. For some reason I haven't posted about this yet. Maybe because I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't over. Well, lo and behold, it wasn't. In the latest development, they have both been completely acquitted of all charges brought against them. Which means the entire process of having a trial and serving out a harsh-but-fair punishment was one big sham.

Here's how it happened: PCB, an organization so fervent about maintaining its secrecy, so notorious for its lack of accountability or transparency, suddenly decided to sacrifice its two best bowlers just to showcase a strange new commitment to justice and integrity.

They rushed to judgment, and now the country looks like a bunch of bumbling idiots. They should have played it safer earlier. They should have either: (1) stuck to their time-honored traditions of secrecy and dealt with the matter behind closed doors; or (2) opened it to the world and had a proper trial - not one where the sentence was, as it appears, pre-determined, but a real and proper and final one.

What has happened is neither here nor there. And it is shameful. And it makes us look shady.

Of course, I'm not all gloom and doom about this. In fact, I'm quite conflicted. There's a big part of me that's thrilled they're back. No, not thrilled...relieved. Despite the team's recent 2-0 test victory against the Windies, there was no angle from which to see Pakistan lifting the World Cup. Now, at least such a chance is vaguely visible, if only through a powerful electron microscope.

nandrolone

So according to Cricinfo, one (admittedly weak) defense for Shoaib failing the drugs test is that he was taking Ventolin inhalers. Apparently Ventolin inhalers contain steroids.

Hmm...

I better not take any drug tests anytime soon.