Shoaib Akhtar appeared on Capital Talk on GEO TV last night.

Before I go on to disclosing what he said on and off camera, let me brief you on GEO TV, Capital Talk, and its host Hamid Mir.

GEO is a privately owned Pakistani television channel based and telecasted out of Dubai Media City. The onwers are also the owners of Pakistan's most widely read newspapers - Jang and The News. There are a number of talk shows aired on GEO and majority of them have the reputation of being anti-establishment. Capital Talk is one of them and Hamid Mir usually bounces on every opportunity to criticize the Government. At times rightly so, at times maybe not.

Back to Shoaib Akhtar.

The show was aired last evening and Shoaib Akhtar talked about how he has been victimized by the PCB and criticized Nasim Ashraf and the PCB of having double standards and personal vendettas against him. He said a number of other things, the key ones being:  read more »

I have been reporting on the Australians who have taken the IPL by storm. Coaches, assistant coaches, domestic players, strength trainers - you name it and the IPL teams have these Aussies on their pay roll.

One glance at the other 20-20 league and you see that its the Pakistanis who are making the ICL their very own.

The Lahore Badshahs was an all Pakistani outfit that made it to the finals of the ICL Edelweiss 20s Challenge with an unbeaten run of 7 wins. In the finals they were stopped by another Pakistani, Abdul Razzak, who also won the player of the series award.

Lahore Badshahs won a lot of hearts in India and the public back in Pakistan followed them with intent. People around Dubai were also buzzing about how good the Badshahs looked.  read more »

IPL chief tells Sri Lanka delegation By Channaka de Silva Indian cricket officials infuriated by haughty statements allegedly made by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) interim committee chairman Arjuna Ranatunga have declared that they would sever all cricketing ties with Sri Lanka as long as Ranatunga is in office. Lalit Modi, the chief of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which is organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and BCCI Secretary N. Sirinivasan had declared the BCCI stance in no uncertain terms when they and other IPL officials met a high-powered Sri Lankan delegation in Bangkok last week to discuss a deal between the IPL and SLC. The chief of the Sri Lankan delegation and the acting SLC Interim Committee chairman S.  read more »

Over at Cricinfo I just read a list of XI cricket bad boys according to Martin Williamson. He had one earlier in January as well.

Basically, Martin Williamson has put together 22 bad boys of cricket including teams and individuals who have been up to no good such as Botham and cannabis, Gibbs and match fixing, packer's rebels, Warne and drugs, other match fixers, and a whole lot more.

Even though Martin Williamson has covered a lot, I think he has missed out on some more interesting bad boys of cricket from Pakistan. I cover them here.  read more »

On the post below, Khansahab has asked a few important questions regarding the current state of Pakistan Cricket.

I try and answer them here - with my opinion based on some facts.

1) Will Afridi be dropped in the near future?

The emergence of Salman Butt and Nasir Jamshed as an opening pair has meant that Malik has had to move down the order. The only way Malik could come back into the team for the match against Bangladesh was in place of Afridi.  read more »

Mohammad Asif must share a hefty burden of responsibility © Getty Images It is something of a fantasy to expect the Pakistan Cricket Board to be ranked with the worlds leading national sporting bodies. But it is entirely reasonable to expect competence. The reign of Dr Nasim Ashraf has been filled with grand intentions and destroyed by grand misjudgements. The recent farce of leaked emails and bugged phone conversations is symptomatic of an organisation crippled by a critical breakdown in relationships between senior management.  read more »

Zimbabwe retained full membership of the ICC as a result of a compromise brokered at the ICC Meeting in Dubai, where by Zimbabwe have withdrawn from the international Twenty20 event in England next year, in return for having retained full membership. The compromise was brokered by Sharad Pawar according to Cricinfo.
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Mohammad Asif was arrested at the Dubai airport on Sunday on the suspicion of possessing drugs.

We still don't know what drugs he was carrying, nor do we know whether the suspicion has been confirmed or not.

Whats intriguing though is that such a high profile arrest by the Dubai Police was swept under the covers for 2 whole days.

News is that the PCB will be making a statement on it this afternoon. But where were they for the last 48 hours?

Trying to get Asif out of jail?

Most probably.

For those who do not know, Dubai and the UAE is very strict on drugs.

Possession of even the slightest quantities of dope, heroin, coke, marijuana, etc could get one into jail for 4 years. Whether you are a tourist, transit visitor, or a resident, it doesn't matter.  read more »

Two weeks after the ECB announced the US$5 million Champions League Twenty20 tournament, England are in danger of not being part of the event with the BCCI officially deciding on Sunday to bar players associated with the unauthorised Indian Cricket League (ICL).
Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary, told Cricinfo Pakistan had been asked to join the [...]