It was Aldous Huxley that once said “The pleasures of ignorance are as great, in their way, as the pleasures of knowledge” and it is evident from the article that Chopra gained great pleasure in telling us what he ‘knows’ about Pakistan cricket. Certainly, from his photo on Cricinfo, it is clear he is someone quite fond of himself generally. Having taken exception to his piece, I decided to write the following as a comment: “A shameful article by someone who quite clearly has a chip on his shoulder. How long have you kept that pent up inside you?”. Who thinks my comment was allowed through? Wrong, it wasn’t, but can anyone tell me why?

Here’s a taste of his work:
“There is a way of describing Pakistani cricket, which used to be tiresome but which has now started to strike me as patently offensive. This is the insistence that Pakistani cricket is charmingly erratic, wonderfully unpredictable, beautifully inconsistent, sublimely indisciplined. Right, I’m making these up. But you see the pattern. Pair a couple of adjectives which span the spectrum from the sublime to the sordid and have a go at describing Pakistani cricket. And I suspect the world of Pakistani cricket revels in this description, because this sort of indulgent tolerance gives it a free pass.”

The basic theme of his article is that Pakistan is the troubled member of the cricketing family with it’s indiscipline and should not be helped all the time. “A common feature of the calls for a display of solidarity with the Pakistani cricket world in its “time of need” is the invocation of “family” and “fraternity”.” Utter garbage! Sri Lanka apart, when has the cricketing world shown us solidarity or come to our aid? Quite the opposite, the most powerful board in cricket, the one he supports, has done it’s very utmost to sideline Pakistan. How on earth could he describe solidarity with Pakistan as a common feature?

Whilst nitpicking, he even mentions Inzamam Ul-Haq’s clash with a spectator as proof of Pakistan crickets troubles. But he completely ignores the troubles of other teams; Harbhajan’s slapping of his own team mate and racial slur to Symonds (with threats of quitting the entire tour) come to mind. How about the problems the West Indies have had?

Whether he truly believes what he wrote, or whether it was a sad attempt at driving traffic to his other blog (which I won’t mention), it is very dangerous and careless to put out views like that. He should stay clear of things he does not know about. It is people like him and his holier-than-thou attitude that do Indo-Pak relations no good. The sad thing is that they are promoted by the site that calls itself the home of cricket. The interesting thing is that Cricinfo would give us all this rubbish about democracy and free-speech as the reason for allowing his views, but then they’d have to tell me why they didn’t publish my comment wouldn’t they? ESPN Cricinfo has lost it’s neutrality a very long time ago and you can let them know here.

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, why on earth did he come out with the excuse that he was smelling the ball? He would have even been better off saying that he was starving because of the poor Australian cuisine.

Afridi has history of course. In a game against England, he walked onto the middle of the pitch and preceded to do a few pirouettes to scuff up the track with his spikes. Highly subtle once again. Yet maybe he should have used his spikes on the ball this time by stepping on it as it obviously legal as it worked for Stuart Broad in the recent match against South Africa where he got away with it.

Stuart Broad, sinking his spikes into the ball & doing "nothing wrong"

And the difference between what Broad and Afridi did? Nothing. So why did he get away with it? Well it’s obvious, Broad is an Englishman. Broad knew what he was doing and as soon as the allegations emerged, the English PR machine went into overdrive with Broad being “astonished” by the allegations, Strauss calling them “malicious” and Cook being angry since they’d done “nothing wrong”. At the time, Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Simon Wilde of The Sunday Times had suggested that the outcome would have been far different if the bowler who did it was from Pakistan. It is clear this difference they spoke of is being shown to some extent in how Afridi’s actions were dealt with. If you look at the effect it has on the ball, surely metal spikes are worse than the enamel that teeth are made of? But I guess in the eyes of the ICC, a Pakistani is worse than an Englishman too.

What Afridi did was wrong and embarrassing, but that and what Broad did shows why it continues to pay to be from certain countries. Just ask Sulieman Benn who was suspended after an incident with Mitchell Johnson and the saint that is Brad Haddin. Haddin, who instigated the clash, and Johnson who clearly makes physical contact with Benn first (at 3 minutes 55 secs), were only fined a fraction of their match fees, whereas Benn was banned, after the match referee had finished analysing his findings. That match referee was Broad’s daddy Chris, by the way. If you don’t want to call it racism, then call it whatever you will, but what it is, is obvious.