The Hindu : Akhtar's light punishment sends wrong signals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 24, 2003

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Akhtar's light punishment sends wrong signals

Shoaib Akhtar is a lucky man. I feel he is extremely fortunate to get away with just a two-match ban after being caught cheating twice.

Tampering with the ball is not acceptable. It gives an unfair advantage to a bowler, and can alter the state of a game.

It is up to the International Cricket Council (ICC) to ensure that a player is punished severely for this grievous cricketing offence. However, the ICC time and again has taken the easy way out.

This also sends across the wrong message. Young bowlers, at the beginning of their international careers, might resort to ball tampering if they are given the indication by the ICC that, even if they are caught in the act, the penalty might not be harsh.

Take the case of Akhtar. He was severely reprimanded for an earlier offence of a similar nature in Zimbabwe this year, and now, the umpires at Dambulla reported him.

For all this, all he misses are just two matches. There are times when players are forced to sit out of more games due to minor injuries!

This also means Akhtar will be available for selection when Pakistan plays its next series, having to miss only one match of that competition. Some young bowlers might begin to believe that the risk is well worth taking, if the punishment is so light.

Punishments are meant to be strong deterrents. The youngsters should look at them and tell themselves "there is no way I am going to do that.''

Akhtar has already been in big trouble over his extremely doubtful action that continues to raise eyebrows. He has run into serious problems on disciplinary grounds too, and it was no secret that the authorities in Pakistan were unhappy with his attitude.

Now, he has made things more difficult for himself. I think Akhtar is extremely foolish to attempt to alter the state of the ball when there are so many television cameras catching every bit of action on the cricketing arena.

This also reveals that he wants to succeed at all costs, even if the methods are unfair. Akhtar's presence in the side has done more harm that good to the image of Pakistan as a cricketing nation.

It is no secret that the Pakistani bowlers have always been under a cloud when it comes to tampering with the ball. Sarfraz Nawaz, reportedly, was a master in this subject.

During India's tour of Pakistan in 1982-83, we found that the Pakistani pacemen were achieving prodigious swing after 40 or 50 overs. The amount of movement they were able to get was abnormal.

We were told later that bottle tops were being brought into the ground during the drinks break, and that some of the Pakistani bowlers even kept them in their pockets for later use!

It must be said here that some of the pacemen from other countries tried to emulate the Pakistanis in this regard but hardly managed to achieve same success.

I must add here that bowlers like Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis had genuine ability to swing the ball, and had it in them to cause havoc in the opposition ranks even without resorting to illegal means.

The onus is now on Pakistan to clean up its image in the cricketing world, even if the ICC soft pedals on the issue.

K. SRIKKANTH

www.kris-srikkanth.com

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