Sports

Shoaib Akhtar accused of ball-tampering

British newspaper accuses the fast bowler of ball tampering in last night’s match against England at the Rose Bowl.

Express September 23, 2010

SOUTHAMPTON: A British newspaper has accused fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar of ball tampering in last night’s match against England at the Rose Bowl.

Pictures taken in the 41st over show Akhtar apparently running his left thumb along the ball's seam before dropping the ball on the ground and standing on it with his spiked right boot as he prepared to bowl to Paul Collingwood.

It is not the first time Shoaib has come under the spotlight at the Rose Bowl.

Four years ago, he was filmed by cameras flicking at the ball with his thumb during a one-day international against England.

On that occasion, Shoaib was cleared but was warned about his behaviour after being accused of tampering with the ball during a Test match in Zimbabwe in late 2002.

COMMENTS (29)

Syed Nayeem Emran | 13 years ago | Reply I have never seen such shameless attitude of any person. Most surprisingly supported by so many blind followers making lame excuses

anoop | 13 years ago | Reply Rao Hamid, Pakistan has another 50 years to challenge India, In your life you (Pakistan) will ever think to hold an event of |CWG status.

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Hassan | 13 years ago | Reply A message from the English press for the Pakistan team. link text

Rao Hamid | 13 years ago | Reply @Kamal Don't pretend like you don't have skeletons in your closet. You're the first to blame Pakistan, remember your last railways crash? I can give you 100 more examples. India is a prospering nation with a huge Hindu Zionist lobby, that are even suppressing Hindu Nationalists. If I do the math, no, sir, you have more skeletons than Pakistan will ever have. No, Indians never blame anyone else and accept their shortcomings, such as they did in Gujarat, such as they did in Mumbai, such as they do with Naxals. Practice what you preach, and preach what you practice!

Ulta Seeda | 13 years ago | Reply @Anoop....haha I second Mr.Rao. you should be worrying about Commonwealth games my son! @Kamal......I thought the ISI was behind all of this! :p

Haseeb Najam | 13 years ago | Reply @IZ @Hak Ok so you mean taking pic of one moment and then showing the close up of another moment. riiiteeee....!! And this, you sir, call (or accept as) a proof :) believe you me, impossible things sometimes seems possible on paper on logic or or probability bases but wont wighted much unless proved in reality. Pardon me but this lame proof is of no use if you based your case on that point :) Lets assume that I am biased to My country Pakistan(and I am PROUD TOP BE) but I ams till unclear that if Pakistani bowlers started to swing the ball , its tampering, but when some other county do, ITS AN ART!!! For instance, MR SHANE WARNE, the proved Match Fixer, is condemning and bashing Pakistan for this, I mean Excuse me Sir. I am in no way doing advocacy for Amir, Asif or salman. What they did, >IF PROVED< they should be hanged to death. But when people with the most corrupt past start complaining about match fixing. this makes me think out of the box :) well sorry for this off side rant but... I would love to watch a video of shoib doing that alleged thing :) If you have any Sir. Hope it wont be an issue as the whole match was being recorded by every possible angle :) ALLAH WARIS.........

Asad | 13 years ago | Reply shoaib is a kind of person who is least bothered about such media efforts. he is among very few guys in cricket history who keeps on performing despite all on-going controversies against him. that becomes his strength is such cases. i wish he can keep his fitness better and shed some weight to contribute with pakistani team for more victories before leaving the cricket career. good going shoaib !

kamal | 13 years ago | Reply ur rt Rao Hamid Common Wealth Games in India are in mess but we will come out of it.And it will be only because we are not blaming somebody else for this mess and we are not saying that its a cospiracy.do'nt worry for us we accept our shortcomings and are willing to improve on them...think about ur country who is always in denial mode and is branding everything as conspiracy..

Arsalan Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply it would be better if they show VIDEO insted of those images, its realy hypothetical. The way he is (supposed) scratching the ball with the LEFT thumb while he is right hander.. lol totally hypothetical.. Need proofs for that you lobby against Indo-Pak. I can see how you ppl are working against us.. Now Common wealth games drama from your tv personals.. Grow up U idiots..

Rao Hamid | 13 years ago | Reply Anoop, and so are the Common Wealth Games in India. So sad to see. Get your act together.

Anoop | 13 years ago | Reply Another controversy so soon? Pakistani cricket is in a mess..

zaib ch | 13 years ago | Reply What the hell this is........ british media is now geting over......infact uk media is very selfish and by publishing these type of news they want to hurt all Pakistani community which is living in uk.....we r always with our heroes .... and InshaAllah we r the 2011 world champions.... May Allah always bless Pakistan in every field (Amin)

Syed | 13 years ago | Reply "standing on it with his spiked right boot" -- is Shoaib THAT dumb?!!!

ADE | 13 years ago | Reply What utter rubbish...the British media can go to garbage for all I care. Just have a look at the newspaper called "The Sun" which came up with the match-fixing stuff after the3rd ODI...read their cricket section and from their language you will see how biased their journalism they are. Their articles have titles such as "Just Butt out you idiot" (referring to Ijaz Butt) , "Shameless Pakistan sink to new lows" (reporting about the rift between J.Trott and Wahab Riaz) and etc. The Britishers should start worrying more about their credibility as I've already made my mind to never read their FICTION junk.

Hak | 13 years ago | Reply Cummon guys lets not find excuses, accept the faults and lets try to rectify.This is not the first time shoib is caught.The pic encircled and zooomed out is not same, but for more clarity they might have selected the next frame, which is closer to his waist. But the other pictures are very clear.Anyways we wont change our attitude and lets live in stone age.

rizwan | 13 years ago | Reply our PCB's high-ups should learn lesson from what happen to our team during this english tour and think that why do we become so soft targets for all. my advise is to first set the home in order before accusing others.

Khurram Bhatti | 13 years ago | Reply Our media is always placing crappy stories never promoting our stars, the media should not report in such a way to enforce their decisions on the people. you could have reported about english team and the umpires faulty decisions but no you will only mess up with your own ppl !

Rao Hamid | 13 years ago | Reply Do you guys even read what you post? Are you a Pakistani newspaper? If you yourselves' are not patriotic, then how do you expect others' to portray Pakistan? We are where we are today partly because you (the media) has not played its part. Shame, shame.

anyportinastorm | 13 years ago | Reply When an lbw is called on Kamran Akmal when every single person in the the ground and the tv audience clearly saw that it was a huge inside edge prior to hitting his pads. The 100 year old umpire who is clearly both hard on hearing and sight slowly raises his finger. This should have been the headline instead of an idiotic peice on ball tampering. Pakistan has been assaulted on every front by the English media and its tabloids. The fact that newspapers such as this are publishing tabloid gossip is degrading to the readers and to the newspaper itself. The boys fought so hard only to have their every effort to turn into an embarassing tabloid article. I hope we play England in the world cup and sweep the floor with them.

IZ | 13 years ago | Reply @Haseeb - now I'm not saying Shoaib is guilty (and he is certainly not any more guilty than Broad and Anderson were) but I just wanted to point out that in the first set the close up is a different picture than the larger one - it is not a doctored version of the close-up. See the position of the ball relative to the trouser drawstring to see what I mean. One is not meant to be the close up of the other, but is a different picture. As for the second set, the second picture which you claim is a doctored pic of Shoaib rubbing the ball without holding it is clearly labeled as the moment when he dropped the ball (after which he allegedly stepped on it) which is why its not in his hand.

Rizwan | 13 years ago | Reply yes @haseeb u r right .... this is the childish nature of our media to make these type of news with their main headings .... to defame our own heroes. Infact i haven't see this news on cricinfo yet.

Faisal | 13 years ago | Reply The British press are just mad... even after winning the series they are not satisfied....

haya fatima | 13 years ago | Reply uffffff its sooooo embarassing....... why is the british media doind sooo...??? em so worried.... :(((((

Tani | 13 years ago | Reply Your newspaper has become a rubbish bin. Please verify the story before putting it on your pages or maybe you publish non-sense accusations knowing that they are false. What a cheap way to make money!!

Blithe | 13 years ago | Reply Just tabloidism! England doing what they do best: using gutter press as 12th man.

Ali Muqadus | 13 years ago | Reply @ Haseeb Najam I agree with u

Haseeb Najam | 13 years ago | Reply Today its confirmed that our own media literally WANTS Pakistan cricketers to be proved for some guilty. If you have taken some time to analyze those CLEARLY EDITED pics, this piece of crap journalism should have some better title like FAKE PICS BY DAILY MAIL since you are blind enough not to point out those blatant mistakes, let me show you what i mean :) In the second pic = see the position of thumb in Close-UP circle pic and in main pic. There is a HUGE difference :) In last pic (left one) = The ball is above the hand :) No man can rub the ball without holding it. even with his nails dig into that ball this is not possible to do that :) Now i hope that you guys will show some self respect and change the title accordingly :) at least do proper research before posting and once you deliver the info add your opinion too instead of just copy-pasting :P

IZ | 13 years ago | Reply "apparently running his left thumb along the ball’s seam before dropping the ball on the ground and standing on it with his spiked right boot" Apparently Shoaib has been learning from Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson: Of course, at that time, Broad and Anderson were just being "absent-minded"! So of course they got off scott free. At least former England captain Vaughn had the decency to criticize them and said: "England have been caught and we have to hold our hands up. They were thinking they were smart but they've been very silly... What would we say if it was Pakistan?" Now we know what they would have said if it was Pakistan.

Abdul Rauf | 13 years ago | Reply It is not fair, Shoaib Akhtar is a greatest bowler of our country, he is match winning bowler. We cann't bear any discrepancy against him. Britains be careful to pass on such remarks about Pakistani Team.

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