Training | 2010.08.31
Dominic Lawson: Cricket has never been just cricket
Full disclosure: a decade ago I authorised the payment of £1,000 in cash in return for a favour from the captain of the Pakistan cricket team, the great Wasim Akram. Then a newspaper editor, I had wanted to send a feature writer to face some deliveries from the first fast bowler ever to be recorded breaking the 100mph speed barrier, Shoaib Akhtar. All the negotiations had to take place via his captain, including the fee. Yet when our reporter turned up at the Pakistan team\'s training ground – where the massively muscled Akhtar was pawing the ground – and presented the cheque to Akram, he seemed most put out. The skipper wanted cash – and seemed faintly incredulous that we would not have realised.
For more information, please visit
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/com[...]been-just-cricket-2066185.html
