Shahid Afridi was given the captaincy of Pakistani Cricket team for the last/5th one day international match against the Australian team. The team performed pretty much ok: and there were moments when Pak team was looking to win the match.
Unfortunately, Pak lost the match: but the more unfortunate thing was the ball tempering done by Shahid Afridi. Sources say that there were 26 cameras in the field that were recording the match: people wonder why the captain did such thing with so much camera coverage?
Fans in Pakistan are saying that, even if there were no cameras watching you: no one should Cheat. Many fans believe that winning should come with respect/honor and it should be a legal win: where ball tempering means that the captain tried to win the match illegally [via cheating].
Shahid Afridi’s fans: all across the global: are shocked to see their hero do such a thing.
Here is one of the pictures in which the S. Afridi is biting the ball:
[Please Note: I captured this picture while watching the match on my PC. There are few different channels that were showing the match live: I was watching one of these channels: so this picture is the property of that respected channel and I am pasting it here just for informational purposes]
In the last/5th ODI, the third empire was Rod Tucker where the Match Referee was: Ranjan Madugalle.
Afridi was caught, biting the ball, during the last few minutes of the match. The empires on the field changed the ball few times and I think the third empire or the match referee was contacting the empires on the field/ground, letting them know of the ball tempering done by the captain.
After the match was over [Australia won]: Shahid Afridi was called by the match referee: Afridi admitted that he did temper the ball: then the empires/referees decided to ban him for two T20 matches.
Today was the first and the only T20 match between Pak and Aus. It was also the first of two matches for Afridi that he cannot play. Shoaib Malik was the captain of the team today: unfortunately, Pak lost this match too.
I was watching a discussion on TV where some cricket experts said that the captain of the team is the one who leads: if he will cheat, then what can we expect from other players of the team?
In 2005, Shahid Afridi was banned for one test match and two ODIs matches. The reason for this ban was that Afridi tried to temper the pitch via his shoes.
And in 2007, there was another ban of four ODIs matches. This time, Afridi was caught on tape when he moved his bat towards a spectator after he was out and was going to the dressing room [may be the person said something harsh]. Many people believe that Afridi was not trying to hit the person and that, may be, he was just trying to scare the guy : )
Fans of Afridi are very disappointed and they wish that their hero should have never done ball tempering.
