‘Boom, Boom, Bite, Afridi’

You will not find Afridi's 'sabre tooth tampering' as a dedicated chapter in Mike Brearley's celebrated 'The Art of Captaincy' bible, and the fact that the all-rounder implemented his highly dubious methods on a couple of occasions at the WACA gives him an episode in soon-to-be-shown Channel Five show 'Cricket's dumbest cheats'.

Afridi would have found it impossible to gaze over at the match referee in wide-eyed innocence after he was summoned to a "so, you know when you were eating the cricket ball..." meeting with the long-suffering official Ranjan Madugalle.

In a post-match interview, Afridi told Australia Grandstand's Peter Walsh that he did not put the ball in his mouth. "No, I was trying to smell it and see how it was feeling," he said, without a flicker of a smile.

When Walsh suggested teeth are not used for smelling, Boom, Boom, Afridi responded: "Sometimes you can do." He then asked Walsh to stop asking negative questions. Quite.

When asked why Afridi may have bit into the ball, Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam replied with almost comical conviction: "It just happened, probably was eating apple you know. I have no idea." And to think that some have had the audacity to suggest that Afridi and co have a propensity to live in a dream world.

The man whose hair can only be described as a 'mane' and whose batting style is best referred to as 'agricultural' has been subsequently banned for two Twenty20 internationals after being found guilty of ball-tampering, a punishment which Cricket Australia regards as absurdly insufficient.

He isn't the first international captain, of course, to tamper with the ball. Mike 'mucky trousers' Atherton, for example, was relatively unscathed after his 'dirt in the pocket' incident. And you would judge Atherton to be considerably more cerebral than the enigmatic Afridi.

Boom, Boom, Afridi said of his aberration: "I shouldn't have done it. It just happened. I was trying to help my bowlers and win a match, one match," he pleaded to Geo TV, a Pakistan-based news channel. "There is no team in the world that doesn't tamper with the ball. My methods were wrong. I am embarrassed, I shouldn't have done it. I just wanted to win us a game but this was the wrong way to do it."

Coach Alam both condemned and sympathised with the incident in two baffling sentences: "It's unacceptable and shouldn't have happened, but it happened and I feel sorry for him (Afridi). Being a captain you should be above everything and this cannot be accepted but unfortunately it's happened to him."

The punishment leaves Pakistan, whose cricket this summer has represented a mind-boggling series of inexplicable events, in an embarrassing quandary. Shoaib Malik has been confirmed as the third captain on the tour of Australia, with vice-captain Kamran Akmal again overlooked due to his village green wicket-keeping at the SCG.

Malik has led the Pakistan team in the past, and was first appointed as the captain in May 2007, after Pakistan's disastrous World Cup campaign under the master of turning twos into ones and threes into ones when running (well, ambling) between the wickets, Inzamam-ul-Haq.

This is not the first time for Afridi, who famously pirouetted up and down the track at Faisalabad in 2005 like Darren Gough in heavily-sequinned lycra, raking his studs indiscriminately down the wicket during a drinks break in front of 32 cameras and two bewildered umpires.

Inzamam, not well placed to cast judgment on someone attempting to slyly gorge themselves on a cricket field, was scathing over Afridi's actions, and even extended his anger towards the Pakistan Cricket Board.

"What Afridi did was unacceptable and more worrying is the fact that he was captain when he tried to tamper with the ball. He didn't do any service to Pakistan cricket with his actions," Inzi told PTI. "I hold the board responsible for all that is happening." It is true, then, that the PCB should have foreseen that the maverick Afridi would attempt to sink his teeth into the gleaming white cherry.

The only thing more ill-advised and ridiculous than Afridi's impersonation of a man eating an apple was the heavily inebriated spectator who invaded the WACA and tackled Khalid Latif around the midriff with all the tact of a Darrell Hair 'throwing' accusation.

The beer-swilling beach bum who grounded Latif with an uncompromising grapple after invading the WACA was banned for life, whereas in Australia's 2007 World Cup semi-final in St Lucia, drunken spectators were simply placed back in the crowd after their flighty appearances.

It is certainly not the first time for such an incident to be met with some staggeringly lax security. During the second Test against West Indies in December, the fluorescent-bibbed staff were too busy bantering with the Castlemaine XXXX-girls to prevent a man from strolling out to the middle to ask where Chris Gayle was going for dinner that evening.

Australia seamer Clint McKay took a stern approach to the matter, while prescribing some Fred Trueman-style treatment to the Jason Gillespie-lookalike invader: "I thought it was disgraceful, something you don't want to see ever. Hopefully it all gets put to bed and he gets a right whack. It's probably the worst thing that can happen on a cricket field, so hopefully it gets stamped out and we don't see it again."

McKay's sentiments can be extended to Afridi's actions, and everyone in the game hopes that there will be no more contenders for 'cricket's dumbest cheats' in the near future. The white Kookaburra ball has many flaws, but at least it tastes/smells better than the red Dukes cherry; hopefully Afridi's ball-tasting antics will not be replicated.