A Tour from Hell

Sometimes the pain just won't go away. It's been over a month since Pakistan's ill-fated visit to Australia, and based on an inquiry report, the PCB Chairman has decided to get tough on the players.

As you sit back and reflect on such a tour, you might think that it's best to pretend it all never happened, and start from scratch. This is Pakistan, so the questions of 'sitting back' and 'reflection' don't arise.

I'm trying to think back to tours which went off as badly as this one. West Indies' 2000 series in Australia, the one which finished off Jimmy Adams, made for generally miserable viewing. India's visit to the same shores the previous year was hardly any better, and is mostly remembered for some dubious decisions against Sachin Tendulkar, Justin Langer being labelled "the best batsman in the world" by Tugga, and VVS Laxman's maiden century at the SCG. The 2006 edition of the Ashes (again, in Australia) also comes to mind.

None of these tours seemed as discordant as Pakistan's. Certainly, there was nothing anywhere near as juicy on field as a ball-biting incident.

In terms of far-reaching effects, New Zealand's tour of South Africa back in 1994/95, unimaginitively dubbed "the sex, drugs and rock n'roll series", comes close. The coach was sacked, questions were asked of the nature of Martin Crowe's injuries, everyone seemed to fall out with the captain, and Ken Rutherford would soon be infamously replaced as skipper by Lee Germon. The trio of Stephen Fleming, Dion Nash and Matthew Hart were banned for smoking cannibis and lying to the authorities about it.

The first two would go on to captain NZ by the end of the decade. No doubt that would be reassuring to Shahid Afridi.