Notes from a sporting week – 07/04/08

All over for Shoaib?

He was always one of the most charismatic, showbiz players, so it should come as little surprise that Shoaib Akhtar’s career has finished in such a Shakespearean tragedy with a five-year ban for publicly criticising the Pakistan Cricket Board and thus effectively ending the 32 year olds test career.

That he has whinged and blamed others should also come as no shock, with his decision to sue the PCB the last desperate throw of the dice for the Rawalpindi Express, after he claimed he was being made a scapegoat for their series loss to India.

However, that would have meant keeping his ego in check, clearly something he failed to grasp when debating the pros and cons of the gentlemen of the PCB, considering he was sitting on a two-year probation for attacking Mohammad Asif.

Shoaib has been on a slippery slope since the turn of the year having failed to receive a central contract and instead was angered by the offer of a special retainer contract. The Board appear happy to wash their hands of their highest profile player, yet one who caused his fair share of headaches and whom they felt his worth no longer outweighed the disruption to the team.

Twice in his career he has been dropped after allegations of throwing and was once banned for a breach of code on tour and ball tampering. He received a two-year ban after failing a test for nandrolone, but then won the appeal.

His attack on Asif came in the build up to last year’s ICC World Twenty 20 in South Africa and left him facing a ban of 13 international matches, a $52,000 fine and a two-year probation after it took his disciplinary breaches to a grand total of five.

There has been no doubt that Shoaib has been one of the recent stars of world cricket. He was certainly in the category of bowler who emptied the bars (when playing overseas) and bringing a sense of excitement to supporters. He took 178 wickets in 46 tests and 219 in 138 one-day internationals.

Nonetheless his career has gone hand in hand with his ego. He happily took on the mantle of team playboy following the retirement of Imran Khan and he was often seen leaving nightclubs at various times of the night, something that was bound to cause consternation in a team such as Pakistan, which has grown more austere in its devotion to Islam in recent years.

Then there were the stories of his sorties into county cricket, where by the time he returned to Pakistan at the end of the summer the club would be left with a mountain of unpaid parking tickets and a long list of angry locals who had been cut up by the 4x4 he had been provided by the club.

Certainly there is something quite poetic about this ending to his career and one, in theory, that you could imagine Shoaib enjoying. After all he was hardly the kind to retire to tea with the various committeemen. What it does do though is leave the crowd baying for more, and for someone like Shoaib, that will mean that the people will forever be in his camp, therefore extending his legend for years to come.

Deng golden off the court as well as on:

He’s been at a while now, but finally Luol Deng’s persistence has appeared to have paid off. The new star of British basketball has done a number on his Chicago Bulls teammate Ben Gordon and persuaded him to give up on the USA call up and indicate he is ready to throw his lot in with the British cause as they build to a competitive level for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

It is no done deal, but it appears that there is light at the end of the tunnel after Gordon agreed to meet with British basketball officials in the windy city within the next fortnight. Previously he has held onto the dream of representing the USA, which he did in 2003, but as he was born in the UK he remains eligible for GB.

The London-born guard, who was third pick in the 2004 draft, was named in coach Chris Finch’s training squad in August ahead of the teams attempt to make it through to the 2009 European Championships in Poland. Gordon, alongside Deng, is the highest profile player in the 33-man squad that includes a number of players from European clubs and US universities.

To show exactly what it is that GB stand to gain Gordon scored 24 points, including five free throws against last year’s NBA runner-up Cleveland Cavaliers and their superstar LeBron James, three days after his inclusion in the British squad was made public.

Should Gordon take Finch up on his offer, it may not guarantee GB any success in 2012, they’d be doing well to qualify for the Europeans next year let alone win an Olympic medal in London, but hopefully it will be a spring board for a better showing in future tournaments, which with all the hype around 2012 we’d do well to remember will take place once the Olympics leave London.
JI 07/04/08