Adil Najam
Seems like everyone who should have been a role model is becoming a symbol of shame.
The most prominent “aalim” in the country is spreading jahalat. The President of the Republic is shouting obscenities. And our endeared sportsman is biting cricket balls to cheat his way to victory (which still alludes him). And all of this is just what we have been talking about the last three days!
Yes, that is exactly what he did. With Pakistan on a losing streak, having lost the first four one-day games and well on its way to losing the fifth, Shahid Afridi took the cricket ball and actually started biting it, even as the television camera was squarely focused on him doing so. And why would Shahid Afridi indulge in this illegal, and rather disgusting, form of ball tampering?
Here is his response, in his own words:
I shouldn’t have done it. It just happened. I was trying to help my bowlers and win a match, one match… There is no team in the world that doesn’t tamper with the ball. My methods were wrong. I am embarrassed, I shouldn’t have done it. I just wanted to win us a game but this was the wrong way to do it.
Is it just me or is he actually missing the point?
Read the statement again: “There is no team in the world that doesn’t tamper with the ball. My methods were wrong.”
What is he saying? That tampering is OK but his “methods” were wrong? Pray tell us, Sir, what would be the “right” method for tampering a cricket ball!
That Shahid Afridi, a cricketer so loved by the nation including at this blog, should do this makes the pain even more hurtful. Shahid Afridi has been slapped with a punishment of having to miss two 20-20 games. But, as blogger Teeth Maestro (where I first saw this video) argues, that is not enough and the Pakistan Cricket Board should itself look into the matter and provide sterner punishment.
Politics, media, and now sports. Let us please have some repercussions to bad behavior, somewhere!
Forgive & Forget… lets move on… he made a mistake!!!
I different perspective, this writer thinks he did nothing wrong or it was justified: http://www.pakool.com/sports/inspite-of-ball-tempe ring-afridi-is-and-will-always-be-a-national-hero/
@Kasim Mahmood
“Do you folks really think he was biting on the ball to tamper with it right in front of some 20 cameras. ”
Is Saadgi Pe Kon Na Mar Jaye Ae Khuda
This issue should be very clear to all cricket fans, Shahid should be banned for life, it is not different then what salim malik or azharuddin did, which is providing unfair means to effect the result of a game. Shahid bought huge embarresment for all Pakistanis and none of his previous good services for the country can entitle him to bring shame to the nation. my fellow pakistanies you should all see the bigger picture, do you want some crook to be representing you in international arena….if yes then whats all the fuss about zardari…..I wonder
It’s sad to see an apparently intelligent person like the write of this blog creating unnecessary hysteria against Shahid Afridi.
Do you folks really think he was biting on the ball to tamper with it right in front of some 20 cameras. Whoever has little cricket knowledge knows very well that biting a torn thread off the seam is not going to make the ball do any kind of magic. He unintentionally tried to remove the thread while talking to his bowler.
If someone really wants to tamper, he’ll certainly not do it like this. Looks like the writer forgot to use common sense this time.
I don’t what he was thinking while chewing the ball. In a comment to a similar blog i was reading,http://tinyurl.com/ybpsmh9, I replied that I think he must be very hungry that he was imagining the ball as an apple and biting it thus! :p
He really was our hero, our boom boom Afridi but his fans are greatly disappointed at his action. So much corruption and cheating is going on everywhere that we have gone all bitter and sarcastic. One blogger even titled his blog “WOW”, http://tinyurl.com/y9skhhl, because he couldn’t believe that Shahid Afridi would do such a thing.
Another blog raised a point that this action did not only bring shame to us and our nation but even to Rana Naveed who was balling at that moment.
http://tinyurl.com/yeklrwu. This link takes to that particular moment where Rana Naveed looks at Afridi biting the ball and decides to turn a blind eye and just smiles at the stupid thing Shahid is doing.
Shame on you Afridi!