Ban has not reversed the swing and fitness of Pakistan’s Mohammed Amir

Such is his talent that he has maintained his speed and fitness even as he paid for his misdemeanours with a five-year suspension. ALSO, talking points for the week.

Pakistan’s Mohammed Amir is playing in the Bangladesh Premier League as he gets set to make his international return after a five-year ban for his role in spot-fixing. AFP

From underneath the helmet it was difficult to say for sure, but a fair guess can be hazarded as to the general nature of Shahid Afridi’s expression.

He was playing for a team – which one is of no consequence – in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), a competition also of inconsequence.

He had just been defeated, his off bail sent into so beautiful a twirl it deserved a film of its own, or at least an Olympic medal.

The stumps were unmoved.

Afridi let out – what was it? – a “phew”, an “ooo”, or maybe a more abrupt “oh” but they all must have come from the same register of emotion: in defeat, in admiration.

Afridi is not the most prestigious victim for bowlers, and to a certain quality of bowler, he is barely even a challenge. Still it was some delivery and Afridi might even have taken it as a compliment, that the bowler bothered to grant him such a delivery.

It began as a product of its angle, left-arm, over the wicket, and so it always had a leg-side bias to it.

It landed just short of a good length, outside or on leg, and then skipped off, like a pebble when it is made to skim off the surface of a lake.

It must have whirred as it went past Afridi’s bat and given where it began and what it finally struck, it must have cut, or swung, away just a smidge.

What was it, that expression? As the bowler was Mohammed Amir, maybe Afridi was smiling to himself, cheered by the thought that an opponent here could be a teammate soon, in India in March, perhaps, for the World Twenty20.

The return of Amir, both in the phase in which it is currently and in what will be the next phase, an international comeback, has so far been viewed most commonly at one level, the moral one. Should he be allowed to play again?

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That question will stick around like a bad marriage, but every time he turns up and bowls and takes wickets of men such as Misbah-ul-Haq, who was beaten for pace, it becomes impossible to not consider the physical improbability of what he is achieving even in this uncompleted return.

I do not remember the last ball he bowled in international cricket. It was at Lord’s, of course, and records show it was at England’s Jonathan Trott, a leg bye the very mundane outcome.

A few months after that delivery, I met him in Doha, the morning after the International Cricket Council banned him for five years.

That day, when his punishment had probably not sunk in, he veered between worrying how he would stay fit, and insisting he could stay sharp enough to return.

In the interim, it is not clear how much bowling he actually did; the ban applied to all levels of formal cricket.

In some interviews he has said he did not bowl at all, not even recreationally.

Now it is one thing to stay fit in that time, especially if you are young enough, but to return and be able to bowl as he has been doing?

Sure the standards of second grade domestic cricket in Pakistan, and even its first-class cricket can be questioned, or the BPL.

But just watch some of the videos that are so persistently unleashed upon social media. The action still buzzes, balls can still be made to swing this way and that, and the pace, to the eye as opposed to a speed gun, looks healthy.

This is after five years of an enforced deprecation, of skill, of sharpness, of everything really; for something as physically demanding but as technically precise as fast bowling, it is astonishing that he is still bowling to something resembling a professional level, let alone taking the kind of wickets he has been taking.

Athletes, no matter what age, do not take a break, or are forced to take one, this long and return almost as they were when they left it.

Women’s tennis player Kim Clijsters comes to mind as an exception. At 27 months, she was out for less time, but she gave birth in that period.

One person who took it as inevitable that Amir is bowling the way he is now is Shoaib Akhtar, a man acutely aware of the physical load of bowling fast.

That young, he maintains, you always get it back once you have it in you in the first place.

What concerns Shoaib more is whether Amir understands the scope of the difficulties that lie ahead, unrelated to his bowling.

In which case there is another athlete who returned after a long break and is performing as well, if not better, than when he went. But American sprinter Justin Gatlin knows he cannot ever outrun the taints of two doping bans.

“There’s no end to this,” he said. “I served my time. I did my punishment … I am still getting punished”.

Words to remember.

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TALKING POINTS OF THE WEEK GONE BY

Tickled pink

What do you know? Test cricket has not died upon the injection into it of a pink ball. In fact, judging by the number of spectators who turned up – 123,736 over three days – and the atmosphere they helped create, it has not been as alive as that for years.

That, incidentally, is the highest attendance at a non-Ashes Test in Adelaide, and though there is no way of knowing, it is unlikely a normal daytime Test would have attracted anything as close to that, even accounting for New Zealand’s current popularity.

It was great to watch, as well, even if the pitch was doctored to maintain the state of the pink ball. Test cricket, its worriers forget, is not only a resilient creature, it is an eminently mouldable one as evidenced by its many evolutions over the years.

There are kinks to sort out, of course, but the day-night Test should be here to stay in those countries where it is feasible.

Lambs to the slaughter

A little cringe at the scorecard and its circumstances is impossible to evade. A near full-strength West Indian side were taking on a Cricket Australia XI of mostly young players in Brisbane: six of the CA XI were on first-class debut and the side’s average age was 21.

In just over four days, the West Indians had lost by 10 wickets, having narrowly avoided an innings loss thanks, mainly, to a 79-run eighth-wicket stand between captain Jason Holder and Kemar Roach.

It is their only tour match ahead of a three-Test series that begins in Hobart on Thursday. Even without the retired Mitchell Johnson and injured Mitchell Starc, envisaging anything other than a home clean sweep is difficult, especially in this era of poor travellers.

Off the field matters do not look brighter. There have been government calls for the dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), an entity already in considerable financial strife. The long decline shows no signs of receding.

KP gives

Kevin Pietersen, if we are to go by public perceptions at least, has never come across as a particularly charitable soul. But as he has undertaken a publicity blitz for KP24 Foundation, that perception should be put to bed.

The foundation has been set up to help underprivileged children throughout the world, and through sport. This week he was in Abu Dhabi, with his Sprite 24/7 cricket project, a camp set up in Dubai for underprivileged children.

He played a little five-over tape-ball game against a side led by another widely misunderstood player, Shoaib Akhtar, in front of at least 10,000 at the capital’s Zayed Cricket Stadium that was part of the annual Sprite Cricket Stars tournament.

“For years I travelled the world playing against young net bowlers and all I thought about was my own preparation,” he said. “I never gave those guys the time they deserved.”

The last week, he said, had been “the best week of my life, my sporting life”, which is some achievement given the highs he has hit.

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