What would you give an arm and a leg for!

A well made cricket game for Nintendo Wii. Just imagine playing square cuts, pull shots, sweeps, straight drives, cover drives, block shots with Nintendo’s motion sensing controller. Just thinking of it makes me wanna jump with excitement!!! Here I give you my word – I will buy Nintendo Wii the day I find a good cricket game for it.

My research on available cricket titles for Nintendo Wii does not reveal encouraging results, there is nothing out there at all.

 

A Pakistani Jaffa!

Shoaib Akhtar and Muhammad Asif acquitted of doping charges

http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/current/story/271241.html

In a 30 page report, the appellete committee articulated several reasons for completely overturning the ban imposed by the earlier committee. Unfortunately, none of them are particularly convincing (note – I have not read the report in its entirety, my comments are based on the key arguments in the report that have been quoted by several news media outlets). The report argues that the two players in question took the banned performance enhancing substance unknowingly. It goes on to say that this was because PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board) had done a poor job of educating the players about anti-doping laws and banned performance enhancing substances.

Let’s talk about this for a second. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s web site, it is the responsibility of the athletes to make sure that they are not taking any banned substances (try taking the quiz on WADA’s web site, it is one of the questios on it). I mean think about it, if they start investigating who took it knowingly and who didn’t, it would lead to tideous invesitgations sometimes taking years and thus rendering the whole process as ineffectual as some of the civil suits. The onus is clearly on the athletes as it ought to be. These laws are specifically aimed at preventing such offenses by providing a strong deterrent in the form of a long ban (often >= year) not to mention the public humiliation that goes with it. These laws have been remarkabely successful in dramatically reducing the role that steroids have historically played in sports.

Here’s a quote from the WADA web site -

If you have a cold, flu or hay fever DO NOT take any medication or substance without first being sure it doesn’t contain a prohibited substance. This includes both over-the-counter substances and medication from your doctor. Remember a positive test is a positive test.

Having said that, I must also note that cricket is not part of Olympics and does not explicitly follow WADA laws. ICC has its own set of doping laws that are largey derived from and aligned with the WADA prescribed code.

A few years ago, Shane Warne, one of the best bowlers in the history of cricket, was banned for one whole year by the Australian cricket authorities as he had traces of a banned performance enhancing substance. Mind you, they did that on the eve of the first match of the world cup. Shane literally cried, issued numerous statements that he had no idea he was taking that substance, he merely took a flu medicine that had that substance in it but to no avail as the laws are very clear on this. It is the responsibility of the athlete to make sure that he doesn’t take anything that violates anti-doping policy.

The way the Pakistani authorities took the matter into their own hands, first banned the players and then acquitted them seems very pre-medidated. There is a distinct stink of conspiracy in the way this whole thing transpired. This report looks like an attempt to find a poor and thinly veiled excuse to let the accused go free well in time for the world cup. Proud and self-confident nations don’t allow the infleuntial to fiddle with their laws in this way. Almost nothing is worth putting one’s ethics on the line, what’s a stupid world cup.