Drug cheats are as bad as match fixers
When the snivelling Marion Jones admitted last October she was a drug cheat and a liar after months of furious denial, she deserved all that has since followed.
Stripped of fame and Olympic Games and world championship gold medals she cut a pathetic and humiliated figure when jailed for six months. The so-called land of the free and home of brave sent a strong message - they have no place for liars and those using drugs to enhance their performances.
Now another one-time track hero, Justin Gatlin who was caught defrauding the system has lost his appeal for the four year ban. He deserves it, too.
Just as did Shane Warne was banned for a year by Cricket Australia on the even of CWC03 in South Africa.
In a sense, it was certain payback for his mixing with crooked bookies back in the 1990s when Sanjay Chawla and his coterie of lowlife accomplices dirtied the game with their own style of money and drug infiltration. And this is the man who has been hailed as the smartest captain in the Indian Premier League.
Remember if you will how IPL big-mouth bully Lalit Modi also has a history when a teenager that involves alleged drug and kidnapping charges while attending university in the United States in 1985. The story is that this occurred while at Duke University in North Carolina.
What is of concern now is following the latest episode in what is a squalid, iniquitous and blatantly corrupt Pakistan soap opera denial story al a la Jones-Gatlin, being played out in Dubai's airport and involves Pakistan fast bowler Mohammad Asif.
In Asif's case, he was caught in a country where they do have honest and strict codes of law enforcement and drug control. It has ripped the façade off another cheat.
Just as well too that he is also outside the confines of a benevolent Pakistan authority which have for too long pleaded ignorance of such behaviour and does damage to the image of fair-minded hard toiling teammates in the post Inzamam-ul-Haq era.
This latest episode includes a load of twaddle spoken by a Pakistan diplomat in Abu Dhabi about the Asif affair being a misunderstanding and a language problem. He is a kid from a village and doesn't understand any fancy jargon that involves drug use.
Oh yeah? What convenient concocted diplomatic doublespeak – or a deliberate distortion of the facts – is this?
Total Comments: 16
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Posted : By Poonjawa
Really, this writer is amazing. He says what he thinks without fear and balances the thouhgts with some insight which suggests he cares more for the game of cricket than most administrators.It would be a guess that he''s an old-fashioned Kiwi at heart and they call it as they see it and that''s what should be about.But one query here. Is the Modi drug ''n kidnap act such a big matter now 23 years after it happened? Just wondering.
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Posted : By nav
nice article...
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Posted : By sam
Hey, geek, Modi was only mentioned as a side issue. But you are too dumb to see that. The article covers far more aspects than Modi, only mentioning the alleged incident.He writes a good story here and should all appreciate this frankness and what the ICC should be doing. Which you don''t mention at all.
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Posted : By Vikram Rahul Amge
Hey, a big pat on the back for dis dude Trevor. He writes a great piece and suggestion to over-reaction is a joke. Da guy what talks about traffiking need to read up da word in the dictionary to get what it means and also check out the way it is spelled out in the story to see that Asif is a guilty party here en dat he is being babied by da people in da know dat he takes hashish and other stuff. Suggesting dat Trevor is also on a drug is a low hit by da others.
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Posted : By Aditya Mookerjee
The drug consumption conundrum, is a fallout of giving paramount importance in life to pleasure and winning, in life or in sports. Winning is extremely important, but not at the cost of self abuse and degradation. Winning is the result, which is an external perception of a phenomenon, we call result. We must not feel bad internally, due to external circumstances, if we have no cause to, due to a perceived personal reason. A person never regrets, if he finds no cause for regret.
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