A meeting was held in Southall to discuss the 5 year ban handed out to Shoaib Akhtar. The venue of the meeting was Chaudhry’s TKC and the organiser was Dalawar Chaudhry.

It was attend by British Pakistani councillors and British Pakistanis from the cricket fraternity. It was generally agreed that the PCB should to be strict on discipline but any punishment must be appropriate.

A 5 year ban will effectively end the career of Shoaib Akhtar and deny him the right to earn a living.

He has been a brilliant but temperamental player throughout his career. The PCB chose to ignore his behaviour when he was at his peak and yet has been heavy handed in the final few years.

The PCB has a shameful record when it comes to treating its greatest cricketers like Zaheer Abbas, Wasim Akram and Saeed Anwar. It merely turns it back on them. Whereas in the rest of the world the respective cricket boards honour the achievements of their great players.

Shoaib Akhtar is one of those bowlers that can unsettle any world class batsman and who people will gladly pay to see. It is not the PCB they pay to see.

The whole episode has been one of great distress to the cricket loving community and benefits no one. Neither Shoaib Akhtar or the PCB. Yet the biggest loser in all this is the name Pakistan.

One of the problems is that Pakistan cricketers are not trained to handle the media and being in the media spotlight and as such make rash comment that they would regret making.

The other problem is that the PCB is only capable of giving orders and is unable to communicate sensibly with the players.

The conclusion of the meeting was that, it is about time both sides put their personal differences aside and do what is best for the game of cricket and Pakistan.