Stani Army

The only evidence of ball tampering in the fourth ODI at Lord's as Paul Collingwood uses the wrong ball (his own) to knock off the bails

So what’s the next accusation the English media have in store for Pakistan? Whilst they’ve broke three match fixing stories, the next one will probably be about how Umar Gul was able to reverse swing the ball so much in engineering England’s downfall in both the last two ODIs.

In both matches, there was a sense of inevitability as Umar Gul and Shaoib Akhtar  began to reverse swing the ball as English wickets tumbled. It was as if the hand of God was guiding the ball down the wicket and giving it a little sideways nudge at the end. It was signature Pakistan. No other bowling attack in the world could ever attest to showing such quality swing bowling in cleaning up a batting line up.

As the whiter ball came into play in the 35th over of the fourth ODI, you could see the cameras starting to zoom in on the Pakistan players’ hands to check if there was anything untoward going on. There was even a comment by one of the commentators at how remarkable it is that a newish second ball can begin to reverse in and around the 42nd over, just 7 overs after it had been taken.

The ball tampering accusations were hurled at us in 1992 with Waqar and Wasim and it may happen again, but as Geoffrey Boycott said back then, “they could have bowled England out with an orange”.

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The stupidity of Shahid Afridi’s actions was profound, there is no question. As if the two whitewashes hadn’t caused us fans enough embarrassment, Afridi had to compound it by taking a bite out of the ball with as much subtlety as that spectator’s tackle on Khalid Latif. By the way, everyone’s talking about security in Pakistan, what happened here Cricket Australia?

Captains take a bite. Maybe there was something wrong with the Australian food?

Afridi was being touted for captain in the Test and ODI formats and I would not have minded. He made a good case with his recent performances and showed signs of maturity but his actions here have got me wondering if he really has matured. Yes, every team probably does it Shahid, but I doubt they use their teeth and make it so blatantly obvious. He may as well have gone up to umpire Asoka De Silva and asked to use his dentures. And when quizzed on Pakistani television

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