Asif, Aktar in Doping Charges
 

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/oct-2006/16/index2.php


http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...oto/nation.jpg

This is the last thing that Pakistan Cricket need right at the moment. I hope there is no solid proof that Akhtar and Asif have taken drugs that are illegal under cricket's laws because Asif has his whole career ahead of him and Akhtar is a great player who could do without this sort of publicity.

Wow.

If this is true (and that of course remains to be seen) the real test is for the PCB. Do they submit the internal test to the governing body and the players then take the ramifications, or do they handle it "in-house"? If the latter, what penalties do they impose?

Real issues re. transparency coming up here.

I'd laugh if they were just being called back to say "The test was clear, you're right to play!"

What a surreal couple of months this has been. All we need now is for all of our players to be implicated in the match fixing. Then I suppose we could start anew with a whole new crop of players with untarnished records.

Pakistan are pretty much screwed with everything thats been happening.

Dire straights for the Pakistani's if there is any truth behind it. For crickets sake, and pakistan's sake i hope there's not, crickets image has copped enough of a bashing in the last 2/3 months.

This is so ridiculous. Why can't Pakistan go more than one month without making a mess of things?
I was so excited about the prospect of seeing Akhtar and Asif opening the bowling for Pakistan. :dry:

http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/iccc...ry/263238.html

Bugger. I like Asif.

Crap. Pretty much ruined my life.

Was pretty shocked when I read it. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Patrick about to take a jump :ph34r:

Tragedy for world cricket if B sample confirms it.

Until such time, no-one should jump to any conclusions

Interesting that the newpaper piece states "performance enhancing" while cricinfo just mentions "banned substance".

I don't particularly care if they like a bit of green in their time off.

Maybe a subtle hint from Malcolm Speed about cricket being a sport where there's more trouble with people taking drugs to get back from injury quicker i.e. both of them have been off long-term?

Anyway, all conjecture and no foundation yet.

As social says, got to wait for the B samples to come through. A shocker no matter what happens from here.