Pakistan cricket continues to shock and awe. Just when they were getting a little overly fidgety about the IPL exclusion, has come another blow. On the Australian tour, Pakistani captain for the T20Is as well as the last ODI of the series, Shahid Afridi, has been suspended by the ICC for the next two international games.
These would include two T20Is, one against Australia on Friday and another against England. And the reason for his punishment was that he was shown by the cameras to be biting into the cricket ball, a gross case of ball tampering! Clearly, the Pakistani captain did not think that the ground was full of cameras, and would have easily caught him doing that.
The usually verbose Ricky Ponting had this to say about the same; “I have never seen that before. I am sure that will be dealt with. I really don’t know what to say about it”
Also, the coach said that he was biting into it like he thought it was an apple! To add to the whole thing, earlier, Afridi had said that he was only smelling the ball, but later pleaded guilty for his offence.
This leaves Pakistan without a captain for the solitary T20I. With Afridi out, Mohammad Yousuf not considered a T20 material, Younis Khan having only recently quit captaincy and Shoaib Malik having fallen out of favour with the selectors even as a pure batsman, the selection panel could have a difficult time choosing Afridi’s replacement as the leader of the side.
And talking of the selection panel itself, it wasn’t as if they have it going easy either. Immediately after the Pakistanis lost their fifth consecutive ODI, the chief of the selectors, Iqbal Qasim tendered his resignation from the post, to leave the post vacant for now. He said that there had been two options in front of him; to fight hard by continuing or to resign. And he had gone on to quit the job.
Earlier, the Pakistani side had lost three Tests in a row as well, to make it eight matches lost to Australia, and the manner in which they have lost Shahid Afridi, it does look like the T20I could also be lost!
