Related Links : Shoaib Akhtar : Mohammad Asif
Two key personalities in Pakistan cricket – Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif got vindicated recently from allegations of drug usage for performance enhancement. For a Pakistani like me, it is an occasion where we all should move on happily because our stance on the whole issue has come clean, but I don’t know why I do not feel too confident about the verdict and the handling of the whole saga.
Making way for the two devastating bowlers in the world will make far more formidable unit for the Pakistan which means more easy victories if they get their act right with balls in their hands. But feeling and acceptance of the presence of drugs in the game and then getting away with it because WADA’s jurisdiction does not allow it to intervene or proceed with any other litigation against the two pace-men because PCB is not liable to it because they have not signed that clause of the agreement, then who will fell the pinch? Definitely if you look at it closely the load has to be borne by none other than the game of cricket.
The Game of Cricket is suffering whether it is match-fixing, ball-tampering, drug testing or anything else. It is the game which finds usually itself on the wrong end of the things. Both fast bowlers have to hear some sledging or remarks that contain contempt on the playing fields against them but nothing more than that. If they do it then they should have been punished as law states but getting away with such allegedly horrendous wrong doing just because the case does not fall in WADA’s jurisdiction is not the solution we all were looking for.
I am happy that we get back our two most potent bowlers who can rip through any batting line up apart, but I would have been lot happier if they had been in the team after getting cleared from any doubts or misconceptions. Murali is playing after getting a clean bill of health from throwing experts after numerous tests and sessions with laboratories. Shane Warne got back on the field after spending his punishment with dignity and grace. But these fast bowlers are free because the law does not have hands to capture them and that is not the way to go about it at all. The way we (our cricket boards all around the world) are protecting our cricketers because they are egg-laying hens doesn’t allow us to say or release these statements that we are doing all of this for the sake of game’s betterment!