Shoaib Akhtar has a knack for being in the news, whether for the right or the wrong reasons. It could be his penchant for pace, his fast lane lifestyle, his casual attitude towards training, his flouting of discipline and annoying a string of managers and the brass at the PCB, his repeated injuries or his being on the wrong side of umpires and match referees, a few of whom, it seems, make it their 'moral duty' to report him to the ICC for 'chucking'.

Shoaib - clean bowls Tendulkar Photo CricInfo

And Akhtar's propensity for providing sublime thrill and sheer heartache in equal measure, and in quick succession, have earned him much of his admirers' ire. His detractors have developed some antipathy towards this speedster of great potential because they believe that his indulgences and his immoderate lifestyle are putting him on the path of self-destruction. The rigours of fast bowling, especially at the scorching pace that Akhtar wants to produce every delivery, takes a huge toll on the body, and is not sustainable in the best of circumstances. And, utterly impossible if one abuses his body and is lax in training to boot.

Akhtar is accused of both: eschewing training, or at least being reluctant about it and not putting in enough hours, and his strong inclination towards 'after-hours' activities. This imprudent combination has resulted in a series of injuries.

There is no contesting these allegations, but to be fair, not all his problems were brought down on his head by Akhtar himself. That said, one has to acknowledge that Akhtar cannot be completely absolved of blame for his career going haywire.

His international debut was delayed because the PCB under Majid Khan dropped him from the '96 Sahara Cup, an annual five-match series between Pakistan and India at Toronto, after he had been reported for indiscipline [absenting himself from the team's lodgings, and reportedly reveling in fair company in cozier ambience]. But the awesome raw pace that he was able to generate and its rich harvest of wickets, inevitably forced the Board's hand and he was selected to tour South Africa in 1997-98. He created a sensation from the word go, with a five-wicket haul in the Durban Test to lead Pakistan to victory in the 1997-98 rubber, till date their only triumph against the Proteas in the longer version of the game.

That was only a prelude of bigger things to come. Next season, on a tour of India, in an eight-wicket haul at Calcutta, he accounted for Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar in two deliveries, thunderbolts straight as an arrow, unerringly homing in on their target. With the '99 World Cup just round the corner, more than anything else, such feats made the world sit up and wait anxiously for this electrifying phenomenon to unleash his thunderbolts.

He did not disappoint, immediately becoming the toast of the whole cricketing world. What is more the crowds loved him, for he had brought the thrill back to the game. The dread that he inspired amongst the batsmen, freezing them in their tracks, made Ian Chappell comment, "They're like hare in a hunter's headlights." They are afraid of him...' Jeff Thomson, the Aussie who is credited with bowling the fastest ball recorded, was there in person to watch him, and with considerable emotion, he christened him as a true representative of his pedigree.

Pakistan made waves, the Aussies won the Cup, the Proteas were considered the best all-round outfit, but it essentially was Shoaib Akhtar's World Cup. He was undoubtedly the fastest in the world, billed by the media as 'the 100 miles per hour' man. Time magazine acknowledged it as such by leading the Cup review with his picture. The English counties lined up to hire him; his demand of a six-figure fee was irrelevant. He was eventually snapped up by county Nottinghamshire for the 2000 season for a fabulous fee.

But just when everything seemed to be going for him, things started to take a wrong turning.

It was a case of being undone by a pair of umpires, Darrel Hair and Peter Willey on a tour of Australia, 1999-2000 season. Hair seems to have become the ultimate authority on the bowling action of bowlers other than the Australian variety, even when others better qualified than he had never found reason to fault it. First it was the off-spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan who came under his 'benign' gaze and was no-balled by him several times for throwing. Then, like a bolt from the blue, Shoaib Akhtar was suspended for chucking by the ICC, on the recommendations of match referee John Reid of New Zealand, who was in turn acting on a report from umpires.

Though Muralitharan was quickly rehabilitated, life would never again be the same for poor Shoaib. The reprieve granted by the then chairman of the ICC, India's Jagmohan Dalmya, proved short-lived, as Nemesis has struck for the second time in 14 months. Steve Dunne and Doug Cowie's damning report on Shoaib's bowling action has once again invited the attention of the ICC, when he was trying to make a comeback after 10 months in the wilderness because of injury. And, as on an earlier occasion, his groin problem has been aggravated, putting a big question mark on his future this time round.

Shoaib Akhtar and the Pakistanis have reason to feel aggrieved. To them, Dunne is not considered as one of the best umpires on the circuit, and the cricketing fraternity considers him quite ordinary because of his poor track record. In the fifth one-day game of the series, in which he reported Akhtar, two of his decisions went against Pakistan.

Cowie too has a credibility problem and had only recently caused Pakistan a grievous harm, a series loss in the West Indies with poor decisions at a crucial point in the deciding Test. To add to it, perhaps these two umpires also have the motivation to prove to the world that compatriot John Reid, who has a hero's status at home, was not wrong in the first place.

The Pakistanis also feel that once the ICC had given Shoaib the all-clear as recently as last year, there was no reason to raise this 'chucking' bogey all over again.

For his part, Shoaib, who believes that there is nothing wrong with his action, will have to toughen himself to absorb the shock and face this latest threat to his career. At the same, he must also improve his fitness standards to a level where he could endure the exacting demands of fast bowling especially at his pace without breaking down as frequently as he has so far.

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