Desperate or just plain dumb ?

There are players who make the ball play to their whims, and then there are some whose whims make them play with the ball. 


Shahid Afridi, in a single stroke of idiocy, has gone where no cricketer has been before. 


The acting pakistan captain, apparently in a fit of utmost stupidity, was caught on camera(s) literally biting the match ball in the 5th one dayer against Australia. It wasn't a nibble or lick, in which case we would have leniently concluded that he was rather hungry (for a win) after seeing his team lose 7 in a row on the tour and heading for the 8th straight. In an attempt to sink his teeth into the matter of winning the match, (and I feel rather stupid even to write this), Afridi decided to give a voracious chomp on the poor ball. It was indeed one of the most disturbing sights on a cricket field. SEE FOR YOURSELF

This man had to be either very desperate or is just plain dumb to something so ridiculous. In any case Afridi now stars in what could be the most explicit acts of ball tampering ever to go on record…and the already controversial player will now have to live with this for the rest of  his life sans redemption. 


Further, in one of the most hilarious cover up attempts of all time, Shahid Afridi claimed he was ''smelling' the ball. If you want first class entertainment, listen to THIS  this interview in which Afridi claims that sometimes one can smell the ball with the mouth, and then requests no further negative questions from Peter Walsh. Pray what was he smelling? Trying to find out for himself how much the paksitan team stunk on this tour ? 


Ball tampering is one of the black arts of cricket, just like sledging.  But in the case of Afridi above, he leaves nothing to imagination. His act of profound stupidity takes the cake. This is probably the ugliest shot of his cricketing life that is already a platter full of odious hits. A stroke that will haunt him forever, and it should.  


He has apologized for it, but his subjugated defense for this act is indicative of his remorselessness. Afridi states on IBN-Live that "There is no team in the world that doesn’t tamper with the ball but my approach was wrong".  "Approach was wrong"...? It's like a convict stating on hindsight that he should have committed the murder by a knife instead of a pistol because the pistol made too much noise ....the crime itself was alright ! 


I have a consipracy theory. Pakistan was 0-7 before going in to this last ODI  match at  Perth. Me thinks some stakes outside of the cricketing ground must have been resting against a pakistani whitewash. With Australia at 7/178 and the match staged precariously in no man's land,  Afridi may have thought of taking matters in his hand (or mouth, as the case may be) to tilt some 'balance' in his 'account'. Far fetched ? Maybe, may be not. But then until last night did we imagine anyone would bite a ball in front of 15 cameras ? Cricket is indeed a game where anything's possible :) 


Of course, for now it will be interesting to see how Afridi handles the next few days with his foot in the mouth.