MUMBAI: The cricket ball has ever remained an object of great awe, what with various theories, real and imaginary, being woven around it on its movement, both in the air and off the pitch, the latest being the so-called reverse swing.
Ever since the ‘reverse swing’ came into vogue, the phenomenon has led to more controversies than one can count. Just take the last few weeks, the cricket ball has had to literally fight a tooth-and-nail battle to keep itself out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons. For the spheroid, the experience was new, as Pakistani captain Shahid Afridi found an untried way of scuffing one of its sides by chewing into it.
One is not sure how much damage Afridi’s teeth could have done to the ball during the fifth ODI against Australia at Perth, but whole hell did explode on him and the Pakistani team. The usually laid-back International Cricket Council acted with lightning speed to slap a two- T20-match ban on the all-rounder. The critics around the world, including former Pakistani players, jumped on the opportunity to mouth their penny’s worth.
The highly talented Shahid Afridi, for all his talent, has definitely under-performed in the last couple of years and yet has had a stellar role to play in Pakistan winning the 2009 T20 World Cup in England, for which he was appointed captain for the shortest version of the game. In the ODI, he was only standing in for Mohammed Yousuf, who had decided to keep himself out. In his eagerness to do his best, Afridi attempted to do something that on hindsight might look terribly silly. He must have been aware of the fact that his act could not have escaped the glare of 26 cameras, with the most powerful zoom lenses, placed at various points. The man knick-named “Boom Boom” for his explosive batting, could not have been that naïve. What exploded in the end was his frustration.
No one has justified Afridi’s misdemeanor. There are those who say that the punishment meted out is too light. It is understood that the Pakistan Cricket Board, which has not taken it lightly, is expected take further action in the matter.
But above all this, one would like to ask a simple question. Why punish one and allow another similar offender to go scott-free?
The reference is to England pacer Stuart Broad, who stepped on the ball with the pointed spikes of his boots and his body-weight, exerting enough pressure to, perhaps, do more damage than what Afridi’s teeth could have done on the ball. That was in South Africa. Leave aside a suspension, the Englishman was not even spoken to by the match referee.
Earlier, he had argued with the umpire when he was given out. Sunil Gavaskar had rightly stated that Stuart Broad gets away every time because his father, Chris Broad, is himself one of the ICC match-referees. One of the highest principles of discipline is uniformity of its imposition.
