Friday, May 3, 2002 There are few real moments to treasure, and many of them happen when one of our fellows bursts through a frontier of human endeavour. Hence we have had due acclaim and fanfares for the first man on the moon, the first daredevil to break the sound barrier, and the first mortal to run a mile in less than four minutes. You might have expected similar salutations for the first man in whites (or pyjamas) to hurl a ball faster than 100mph, yet it never turned out that way.

This is a moment for much of the world's cricket and sports media to look at itself in shame. The world's best cricket writers might well hail from England and Australia, but the rest of the cricket world is getting rather sick of their parochialism. There might have been an excuse for this 20 years ago when overseas matches barely registered on national television schedules and the internet was unborn, but even then you would have hoped that media men could have taken a more rounded view.

With cricket's rapid globalisation there is no excuse at all. That hasn't stopped our eminent pundits and writers from churning out World XIs and All-Time XIs packed with players from Australia and England, with a nod to West Indies and South Africa. Other than Sachin Tendulkar, Asian players rarely get a look-in, their skills downplayed while those of their Australian and English counterparts are energetically talked up.

Take Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne, both exceptional bowlers. I am convinced that if a Martian analysed the media coverage of the achievements of spin bowlers he/she/it would conclude that Warne is the greatest bowler in the history of the game and Murali is merely better than average, but only because he is a freak. He would probably never get a whiff of the claims of Abdul Qadir or Bishan Bedi. When Warne breaks through the 500 barrier expect an earthquake, but when Murali goes past 600 there will be a politely mild tremor of applause, no more, and plenty of discussion about his action. Similarly, who remembers Wasim Akram taking his 400th one-day wicket, way ahead of the pack? Now if Wasim had been born in Manchester or Melbourne, you would have never heard the last of it.

Which leads us nicely to Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee. When Brett Lee nudged past Shoaib with a rip-snorting delivery in South Africa, the hosannas sang out from on high. When Shoaib thundered back in Sharjah, the silence was worthy of a monk. Now Shoaib has pushed beyond 100mph - and this was no freak because of the consistently high velocity he has generated in the last few months - there is more discussion over the validity of the measuring device than of Shoaib's milestone. Imagine if Brett Lee, who I admire greatly, had beaten Shoaib to it? In many ways Lee's reaction has been nobler than that of the media which supports him.

Shoaib and Lee are wonderfully exciting cricketers. But Shoaib is the first man to break the 100mph barrier, and it is about time he got some credit for it. The ICC could begin by standardising the measuring system and making speed records official. It might not matter much to ICC, but it does matter to fans. The media could help too, by looking at world cricket through a new lens that acknowledges the achievements of Asian cricketers. This would please me because I could stop writing columns like this one. It would also go a long way towards healing the wounds in world cricket.

Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. More Kamran Abbasi
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