I read in today’s Independent that two Pakistani cricketers have been sent home for failing a drugs test for performance enhancing drugs.
For cricket!
I have fond memories of watching cricket in the Mardyke grounds in Cork as a child, and again as a student in London spending sleepy afternoons watching matches on Putney Heath.
I always thought it the most soothing of games to watch, I have a friend who loved to listen to the sonorous tones of John Arlott on the radio, this without understanding the first thing about the game, but just for the wonderful feeling of soporific heat that came over him listening to the game’s lazy unfolding.
What on earth would one take to improve ones performance of such a game.
I also see in today’s paper that an Australian was sent home in disgrace in 2003 for taking a diuretic.
Was he that desperate for an excuse to grab a few moments off pitch in the pavilion?
Was he so bored by the match that he needed a cast iron excuse for a fag break?
Maybe the “performance enhancing” drugs taken by the Pakistanis were to prevent just such an eventuality, could they have been tranquillizers?