Board to blame for Asif incident

Mohammad Asif was detained in Dubai on suspicion of possessing drugs and Khalid Hussain believes the Pakistan board has only itself to blame for his latest misadventure. He writes in the Karachi-based News:

Asif’s latest episode involving drugs is by no means an isolated incident. Less than two years back, the fast bowler tested positive for banned anabolic steroid nandrolone along with Shoaib Akhtar. But while Shoaib — the ‘bad boy’ of Pakistan cricket — was relegated to the role of a villain, Asif was treated by our cricket bosses as an innocent kid ‘who didn’t know what he was doing’.

It is this patronising attitude of the PCB that is indirectly responsible for the latest embarrassment Pakistan has been forced to suffer courtesy one of its cricketer stars. Asif’s detention in Dubai for possession of drugs was flashed by TV channels and websites worldwide on Tuesday. Hardly the sort of publicity, Pakistan or Pakistan cricket needs after all that has happened in recent times.