Sport Today

Shariq and Afzal,

Afzal has said everything I wanted to say in his contribution to the
thread, and better than I could. I use google to post, and his post
has not yet appeared there, which is why my post will not appear in
that thread.

I can't help but think that Shoaib is being made the scapegoat here. I
find it hard to believe that he did not bowl because he was unhappy
with the fields Inzy gave him. That seems too trite a reason for such
a reaction.

Talk about Umar Gul for a while here - the guy won Pakistan the second
test and then was gone for the third. In other words he hurt himself
in the nets at some point. His presence could have made a big
difference on the Pindi wicket. Have we really investigated if his
injury was serious enough? Have we done such investigations on Razzaq
and Moin?

Shoiab is an easy scapegoat - he is a showman and it is easier to get
away with such allegations against him. I have no doubt that he has
serious attitude problems. But to say that he faked injury on a
crucial day in the test series is a bit too much IMO.

If it is in bad taste for Shoaib to call up Latif and say what is
claimed, it is in bad taste for Inzy to single him out as the reason
for the defeat IMO. Inzy scored less runs in this test than Shoaib.
His captaincy was insipid and unimaginative. It is in bad taste for
Rameez to say that Youhana at 48 only cared about his half century. It
is in very poor taste for Latif to make public what he claims Shoaib
told him in the middle of a test. There are many culprits here, but
today I saw articles only bashing Shoaib. There was an article calling
Shoaib "the Salman Khan of Pakistan cricket" :-)

I am not trying to say Pakistan lost becauseof Inzy or anyone else in
particular. Pakistan lost because India were the better team. Instead
of just letting it go at that, this defeat has resulted in all sorts
of finger pointing. The fact of the matter is that professionalism is
very low in this Pakistan side as a whole, and it is not just Shoaib
who should be blamed IMO.

About the incident where he was sipping cola - we dont know what kind
of pain he was in. Maybe he had ha the initial treatment and was asked
to rest for a while. Initially I too thought that was bad, but really
till we know more details, we cannot judge here.

Shariq, my point is not that Shoaib is an angel - he is clearly not.
My point is that he has become the lone scapegoat for bashing, and I
think he does not deserve this.

About his photoshoot in India - all popular cricketers do photoshoots.
Has poor performance ever stopped any cricketer on this regard? His
injury may stop him from the strenuous business of fast bowling, but
if it does not prevent him from doing a photoshoot, I see no reason
why he should not do that.

Best,
Vinay

The trouble is that this is not the first time that Shoaib has been
suspected of "running away", to use a famous rsc term. I was in New
Zealand during the Pak tour there, and Shoaib's status was like a
sideshow soap opera for most of the tour. Until the team walked out on
to the field, no one was sure whether he would play or not. It seemed as
if Miandad was always saying Shoaib would play, and when the match
started, there was no sign of Shoaib. He ended up missing a Test, and
then won them the 2nd Test. He promptly missed a couple of odos, and
then played in the last two or three. The impression that he was a bit a
of a prima donna was inescapable.

It's easy to say that he's being made a scapegoat now. Perhaps he is,
but he was a non-factor in this series. And he hasn't won any friends
along the way.

Are you saying he opts out and in of match whenever he wants to,
according to his own wish and whim?

I find it very hard to believe that, no matter how in-disciplined Son
of *** he is.  I mean he is an international player after all.

If he is that bad, he should not have been in the Pakistan Team to
begin with.

He is a little bit of his own -- but bottom line is he is a fragile
idiot, gets injured a lot and Pakistan push him a lot and probably
also expect a lot from him.  Also as everybody says their (Pakistan
Teams) fitness is an issue.

Nobody will deny that he puts in a lot of effort (to me the most
effort, of all pace bowlers) to bowl.  Sometimes that takes the toll.

He is just a mis-guided youth -- who needs some training, and somebody
to teach him disciplined bowling.

I think this whole issue was over-blown cuz not only he said he was
injured, but also while Pakistan was getting beat, he was looking to
make a visit to India for some ad-shoots, obviously pissing off
people.

Bottom line is Pakistan got beaten by a Good Team, and they have to
accept that fact and keep moving.  Who knows what could have happened
had Shoaib bowled all his overs, I dont know how that would have
changed the result, considering that it was not even a close match.
Maybe the result would have been delayed a little bit.