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!
Any enlightment from any educated aalim regarding Afridi’s hunger for the ball?
No?
:(
The Boom Boom stuff got to his head and IT EXPLODED.
He is 29 and close to the end of his prime, as his recent performances show.
Having brought disgrace to the Country and International Cricket he should be banned by PCB for life. This will make room for the performing Under 19s.
As a Failed Role Model what value does he have for Coca Cola (?) and his other sponsors? Remember what was done to Tiger Woods by his Billion Dollar Sponsors for a personal transgression. Afridi has demeaned Cricket.
I read about the episode this morning in the Wall Street Journal also… and it was embarrassing..
For those who think Shahid was removing a thread from the ball and could not have possibally be tempering with the ball in front of 27 cameras, let me take you a few years back when in a match against England he suddenly had an urge to dance on the pitch (trying to roughen the surface) during a break and was cought on camera. So it os not the first time and it is not so innocent.
My openion, Rana and Asif should also be reprimanded as they acted as nothing weared is going on when their captain was trying to chew the ball beside them
@ Kasim Mehmood
“He unintentionally tried to remove the thread while talking to his bowler.”
Can someone explain to him the meaning of “tampering”?