Asif vows to fight out
Bureau Report

LAHORE—Pakistan’s young fast bowler Mohammad Asif said he would fight a one-year ban for doping and pledged to emerge stronger from the scandal.
“I am appealing against the ban. I will appeal this ban and fight it out,” Asif told newsmen in his first public comments since he was ruled out of all international and domestic cricket on Wednesday. Asif’s new-ball partner Shoaib Akhtar was banned for two years after both tested positive for the prohibited, performance-enhancing steroid nandrolone last month.
The pair will miss the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. Lanky 23-year-old Asif received a lighter sentence because a Pakistan Cricket Board tribunal said that, unlike Akthar, he had never been tested before and knew little about doping matters. “I had never thought of facing such a situation in my career,” said Asif.
“It’s so unimaginable that I won’t be playing the World Cup. I want to play the event to help Pakistan win it,” said Asif, who hails from the small farming village of Machikay near Sheikupura in central Punjab province. He rose to fame only last year with a ten-wicket haul against Ashes-winners England in a side match in Lahore — a display that earned him a contract with English county Leicestershire.
Asif then took seven wickets to help Pakistan win the Karachi Test and the series against arch rivals India in January this year, followed by 17 wickets in Pakistan’s 2-0 win in Sri Lanka. He missed Pakistan’s first three Tests against England but returned at the forfeited Oval Test in August with a four-wicket haul and performed well in the one-day series. The failed dope test, after which he and Akhtar were pulled out of Pakistan’s Champions Trophy squad in India, capped a year during which he started as new hope but ended as fallen idol.
Asif said he felt traumatised. “I can’t tell you what I am going through. Sometimes you go through a crisis, like you don’t get wickets or you are out of favour with selectors — but this is something I never thought of,” he said. “My whole family, father, mother and brothers and a lot of friends are very worried. My team-mates, captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and coach Bob Woolmer are disappointed but everyone has tried to lift me up from this.” Asif pledged that he had not taken any banned substances on purpose.
Team physiotherapist Darryn Lifson told the tribunal that Asif had stopped using a locally-bought vitamin supplement that may have led to his positive tests “as soon as he was told to do so”, adding that Asif also had little understanding of English. “I have earned a name only on my God-gifted abilities and not on anything else and knew nothing about doping,” he added.
While Asif’s youth will likely allow him to make a comeback, the career of 31-year-old Akhtar, nicknamed the “Rawalpindi Express”, could have hit the buffers as he will be 33 by the time he returns.