Mohammad Asif must share a hefty burden of responsibility © Getty Images

It is something of a fantasy to expect the Pakistan Cricket Board to be ranked with the world’s leading national sporting bodies. But it is entirely reasonable to expect competence.

The reign of Dr Nasim Ashraf has been filled with grand intentions and destroyed by grand misjudgements. The recent farce of leaked emails and bugged phone conversations is symptomatic of an organisation crippled by a critical breakdown in relationships between senior management.

All this unwelcome controversy, however, fails to distract from the PCB’s greatest mistake under Dr Ashraf, which is its mishandling of the drugs problem. The issue of drugs in sport cuts to the heart of sporting professionalism and administrative excellence. It is a marker of integrity and an examination of the robustness of a cricket system.

While Mohammad Asif was rotting in Dubai custody, a routine urine sample taken in India was fermenting an overpowering stench. The decision makers in Pakistan cricket must ask themselves how a young cricketer—a bright star—could be allowed to transgress so soon after another scandal almost ended his career?

Asif must share a hefty burden of responsibility. There was a time when the mere thought of representing your country filled cricketers with such pride that they would not risk damaging their careers. Now it seems that these young stars achieve too much fame too soon. Cricket is played in the head but that is also where careers are broken. Only the strongest and most focused minds can expect longevity.

Ignorance, as Asif will discover, is no mitigation for a crime. Last year’s narrow escape should have taught him to avoid all suspect substances. The only conclusion is that either Asif is incredibly stupid or his international career does not matter to him sufficiently.

Nor has the PCB done Asif any favours. By treating him as a special case, a misled innocent, and focusing its anger on Shoaib Akhtar, the PCB has led Asif to believe that he is blessed and will always be shown leniency.

While Asif and Shoaib have brought damnation upon themselves, the PCB has passively and actively indulged their irresponsibility.

Primarily, a cricket board’s duty is to ensure its cricketers play by the spirit of the game. Cheating and rule breaking of any kind must be actively discouraged. Players who lack education have to be closely supervised, and loose cannons require clear direction instead of freedom—a problem child like Shoaib, for example, was allowed to follow his own training regimes.

Once the drug scandal broke it became clear that the cricket board’s education of its cricketers was insufficient. Its adherence to international standards was haphazard. And its handling of the crisis followed a process that was laughable at best and devious at worst.

The cricket board’s desire to clear its players by any means was a most cynical exercise in double standards. Indeed, attempts to enforce discipline have been undermined by the PCB’s own failure to apply discipline in a consistent manner.

Unfortunately, such shameless conspiracies and amateurism have become the hallmark of Pakistan cricket. Other boards are stricter with discipline. Andrew Flintoff was stripped of the England vice-captaincy after a drunken midnight jaunt on a pedalo in the West Indies. Shane Warne missed the 2003 World Cup after taking his “slimming pill.” Ian Botham was banned for three months after admitting in a newspaper article that he smoked marijuana.

The point of these bans was as much to demonstrate that top international sport requires discipline and international cricketers, especially star players, have a responsibility to set the right example to youngsters.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani way has become one of creating poor processes and regulations, applying them inconsistently, and bending the rules whenever the opportunity arises to indulge public and personal sentiment.

Instead of becoming valuable role models for the next generation of Pakistan fast bowlers, Shoaib and Asif have abused their positions and brought disgrace upon their country. They have diminished their talents and their places in history.

But should we damn them outright? No. Their extravagances and their errors have been facilitated by the PCB, which has failed to manage stars so that they maximise achievements and eliminate weaknesses.

Were Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, and Waqar Younis models of perfection? I guess perfection is not in the nature of fast bowlers. But their imperfections were managed in such a way that Pakistan cricket was able to flourish. The current dynamic of players and administrators is an imperfect storm ripping apart the soul of Pakistan cricket.

Mohammad Asif, a player who held the future of Pakistan cricket in his hands, has just become flotsam. It is almost beyond belief that his international career could have ended before Shoaib Akhtar's.

	Mohammad Asif during better times © AFP

Mohammad Asif is a passionate cricketer. He demands wickets. He fumes and rages to unsettle his opponents. His attitude combined with exceptional skill at the beginning of his international career quickly established him as the beanpole star of Pakistan's bowling attack. Yet injuries and drugs have just as quickly brought him to his knees. A thrilling prospect has crashed into a bittersweet reality.

The IPL was meant to reinvigorate Asif's career, as well as his bank balance. The theory went that the McGrath of Sheikhupura would learn at the right hand of the McGrath of Dubbo. Yet it seems that any skill and discipline that Asif might have learned on the field was not imitated in his private life.

Asif, of course, would not be the first cricketer to be embarrassed by possession of recreational drugs. Indeed, two of his most illustrious predecessors required the Pakistan Government to extricate them from humiliation in the West Indies. Nor is possession and use of recreational drugs sufficient reason to end an international career, although it certainly demands disciplinary action.

But Asif's case is unique. His scrape with WADA should have taught him something very simple: a cricketer who truly cherished his international cricket career would have avoided all drugs. Remember, his drugs downfall was supposed to be because of wide-eyed innocence--not cheating--and the PCB had an onus to educate its tainted stars.

Now Asif is once again ruined by his own indiscipline. If the Dubai tests come back positive, the McGrath of Sheikhupura will become the Mug of International Cricket.

For Pakistan fans, at least Sohail Tanvir's T20 excellence could not have been better timed: a flicker of joy in the deepening depression of Pakistan cricket.

	Akhtar and Asif can breathe easy now © AFP

Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif can heave a massive sigh of relief. You can be sure that if their case had been heard at the Court for Arbitration for Sport their plea of ignorance would not have been received sympathetically.

In truth, though, there are no winners. Shoaib and Asif will have to endure snide remarks for the rest of their careers. The ICC has been shown to be impotent beyond events that it officially organises, a sorry state for a sport's governing body. WADA flexed its muscles and discovered that they are no bigger than those puny bumps possessed by Montgomery Burns. And the PCB has bizarrely claimed a triumph when it set off this whole farce with a badly executed hearing and then staged a pantomime over the appearance of Shoaib and Asif in the World Cup.

There is no place for performance-enhancing drugs in sport but we don't want miscarriages of justice either. The PCB, ICC, and WADA have all contributed to this failure of process. It can't be allowed to happen again but it will unless all three organisations make sure their processes are aligned.

I wouldn't bet on it.

	Can we stop taking the piss please? © Getty Images

Is it so hard to get a urine sample from Shoaib Akhtar? And when he finally deigns to offer up some bodily fluids what will the test prove? The same applies, of course, to Mohammad Asif.

Nandrolone is broken down reasonably quickly in the body but its metabolites can hang around for months. It is possible that metabolites might still be present in Shoaib's and Asif's urine samples. Provided those levels have dropped to near the threshold set by WADA--which is where you guess they might be if they had decreased in line with the decay curve of nandrolone metabolites--the conclusion is that Shoaib and Asif have been clean since their last test. Under those circumstances talk of life bans seems ridiculous.

On the other hand, two scenarios would cause them a problem. Firstly, if it turns out that the levels are higher than the last test. Secondly, if the result is lower but still high enough to be out of line with the decay curve of nandrolone metabolites. Under either of these scenarios their selection cannot be justified.

The decay curve, unfortunately, varies between individuals, which means that there might be a grey area.

The fact that neither of them has yet taken the test seems incredible, and conspiracy theories were fuelled by Shoaib's outrageous behaviour last week. The obvious concern is that Shoaib knows that the gig is up and is preparing his exit strategy.

But, like Inzamam, he is unlikely to play another World Cup. They have both tasted the bitter failure of 1999. This is no time for exits. It is a time for total commitment. Pakistan's focus must now be on pulling together as a team, putting past stupidity behind them, and ending this period of dispiriting, despicable, and relentless turmoil.

The first step, Mr Akhtar, is to stop taking the piss and start giving it.

WADA's appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport is an unusual one in that it is bypassing cricket's ruling body. The ICC has examined its own regulations where it is written as clear as day that the ICC code applies to ICC events. The court of arbitration and WADA boast even longer documents about their rules of engagement, and a first glance at these does not make it immediately obvious whether or not the court of arbitration has any jurisdiction in this instance. Where there is any room for doubt expect lawyers to jump in with arguments that might take an eternity to resolve. If the PCB does not accept the court of arbitration's jurisdiction in this case and the ICC believes that its own code does not apply to the PCB's out of tournament testing--the fact that this is not a joint application by WADA and ICC speaks volumes in my view--we could be in for the biggest farce in the history of sport. Presumably it was not beyond the wit of man or woman for WADA, ICC, and PCB to have done a little scenario planning and risk management before they signed up to the various doping codes and processes.

Thank you all for a tremendoud debate on this important issue. Understandably it has sharply divided opinion. It will continue to do so.

Some of you are disappointed and angry by my claim that justice has been done. My interpretation of justice is that it has two elements. First, a due process. Second, a just outcome arising from that due process. In this case, the process involved setting a board policy, educating players, monitoring their drug status, and then hearing both sides of the argument at the first tribunal. Each stage of that process was flawed (see entries in 'The drugged cricketer' category). That taken with the scientific problems with ascribing causation to the presence of nandrolone in urine (a situation that I believe is a major problem for WADA and one that it owes it to the world's premier athletes to resolve) and the players' insistence that they did not take nandrolone are sufficient reasons to give the players the benefit of the doubt.

In any organisation people look to blame those below them. It is a major failing of WADA's stance. Whatever the circumstances, the ultimate blame lies with the cricketers or athletes or tennis players, says WADA. This simplistic and idealistic view takes no account of ground realitites such as the education of sportspeople, the support they receive from their governing body, or the drug and product licensing and validation regulations in each country. A rigid policy does not even contemplate the doubts about scientific evidence. It for these reasons that sportspeople have been able to argue, with the support of lawyers, that they are innocent. WADA needs to understand that in the world of medicine and science certainty is a preciously rare commodity.

Let's take the example of medicines and other herbal products in the world's poorer countries, some of which happen to be big players in the world of cricket. The World Health Organization has a major concern over the licensing and manufacture of medicines in poorer countries. Globally, ten per cent of drugs are thought to be fake with far higher percentages in poorer countries. There are international guidelines but these countries do not have the infrastructure or the financial resources to implement them.

In short, you can't be sure that even blockbuster international drugs are real. What hope do you have when you consider supplements and herbal products, which are even less stringently regulated? There is a wealth of research evidence to support this argument.

Another example that springs to mind is a research paper that we published when I was at the BMJ. The researchers analysed several chinese herbal products and found that just under 80% of them contained a steroid that was a prescription only drug in the UK and should not have been an ingredient without proper approval. There was certainly nothing on the labelling to suggest that the products contained a steroid. If this can (and does) happen in the UK, what hope for countries like India and Pakistan?

The simple point is that it is entirely plausible that a supplement taken in all innocence could contain a banned substance.

These facts taken together could be a recipe for despair but it won't be if we focus on systems and make them optimal. The PCB's system for player education and drug monitoring has been shown to be inadequate, possibly pathetic. Who at the PCB will take responsibility for that failure of management and leadership?

The ICC is supposed to be responsible for the conduct of its cricket boards and standardisation of procedures. You might have imagined that the ICC would have got its house in order after the Shane Warne diuretic controversy (an innocent attempt at weight loss or an attempt to mask more serious illicit drug use?). Who at the ICC will take responsibility for this failure of management and leadership?

Finally, what's the point of WADA if it cannot ensure that its signatories follow proper procedures and maintain standards. We hear a great deal of hectoring from WADA but what about hearing more about its attempts at supervision of governing bodies? What about hearing more about its efforts to improve our understanding of how performance-enhancing drugs are abused, metabolised, and identified? What about hearing more about efforts to assist countries that might not have the infratructure or the financial resources to develop watertight systems on their own? Who at WADA will take responsibility for these failure of managemenet and leadership?

Yes, of course, despite all these system failures the players may have taken performance-enhancing drugs deliberately. To believe that to be impossible would be foolhardy. But this is exactly why there has to be due process from beginning to end, a system that sportsmen and sportswomen will trust. Only then can you implement a zero-tolerance policy. Only then can you ruin people's careers and destroy their reputations. Some sports have got their houses in order. Cricket clearly has not.

Shoaib Akhtar says he can breathe again but so can Pakistan's prospects of lifting next year's World Cup. Despite a noble effort by Umar Gul and Shahid Nazir, Pakistan's bowling has a toothless look to it without its premier fast bowlers. Shoaib and Mohammad Asif are capable of taking wickets on any track, a priceless commodity. Welcome back.

Much will be made of their bans being overturned. I can hear the clamour already: "What do you expect from Pakistan cricket, every rule will be bent to protect their star players." Well, my view is that it is better for justice to be done than for the players to be the victims of a witch-hunt. And, let's be clear, several top stars have successfully pleaded a defence in this situation but with higher levels of nandrolone in their urine, take Greg Rusedski for example. The central problem with nandrolone, to my mind, is that the evidence base is not sufficiently strong to end or harm any sportsman's career on the basis of it being found in a urine sample. I fully support the elimination of performance-enhancing drugs from sport but clearly the drugs authorities need to work harder to produce better diagnostic tests and stronger evidence to support the validity of their tests. Nandrolone is a particular problem.

These issues were complicated further by the ramshackle way in which Pakistan players were instructed about drugs. Inevitably there will be denials about the quality of information and the level of supervision that the players received but anybody who has glimpsed the inner workings of Pakistan cricket knows that there is face validity to the findings of the tribunal.

The problem with any hearing that attempts to be fair is that a proportion of people who are guilty will be found to be innocent. Better that, though, than the other way round. In this case, my view is that there was sufficient doubt about the method of raising awareness among players and the process of testing--and further doubt about the wickedness of the players' intentions--for them to be found not guilty. A bad process invariably produces a bad result, which was the outcome of the first hearing.

Pakistan cricket must put this sad affair behind it, learn from its mistakes, and develop a proper process for drugs awareness and monitoring. An urgent review of the PCB's medical panel is required. It has emitted shambolic signals for years. Shoaib and Asif must now be exceptionally diligent about what they consume for there can be no second chance and no second forgiveness.

Above all, Pakistan cricket must now focus on winning the World Cup. And that preparation has to begin with the selection of the team for the second one-dayer, a team that should include Shoaib, Asif, and Shahid Afridi.

Many of you will disagree. But as Martin Luther King once wrote from Birmingham jail: "Injustice anywhere harms justice everywhere."

	What's the rush? © Getty Images

"Rush to Judgment" might be the title of a book about the conspiracies surrounding the assassination of JFK, but it's a phrase that also neatly sums up the first hearing into the alleged drug use by Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. Now that lawyers have been called in by all sides--an eminent one by Shoaib, an English one by the PCB, and an ex-cricketer by Asif--the process has inevitably been slowed down. The fact that Shoaib's lawyer is asking for more information from the PCB underscores the point that he and Asif were underrepresented at the first hearing. The fact that the PCB has appointed its own lawyer makes you wonder about the neutrality of the appeal hearing? And the fact that both players are currently banned makes you wonder what the rush is all about?

Amid this flurry of legal activity, the credibility of the first hearing is eroding by the minute.

Amid the shame of the verdicts against Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, one aspect of this whole business is bothering me. The Pakistan Cricket Board sensibly handed the matter over to an independent tribunal. Smart and fair move. The tribunal has delivered its verdict. Tough but fair? Well, perhaps not.

Any legal case--and that is exaclty what this was--requires a due process, and that includes the opportunity for the defendants to test the evidence and present their defence in a proper manner. The tribunal has tried to argue that Pakistan's premier bowlers were given the opportunity to defend themseves. M'lord, I beg to differ.

The simple point is that neither player had legal representation. Asif, who the tribunal has tried to portray as some kind of village idiot, defended himself. Shoaib, who the tribunal has tried to portray as a charlatan, was defended by a doctor turned administrator turned journalist. Now all professionals must recognise the limits of their profession. Doctors are not lawyers, and it might have been better for Shoaib if his good doctor had butted out.

You might say that this was not a formal court case but a quasi-legal process. You might say that the players exercised choice. But I'd say that it is the responsibility of the court (quasi or otherwise) to ensure that the defendants are adequately defended, and in this regard Shahid Hamid has failed. Indeed, if it is true as reported that Hamid was chatting about the drugs hearing during another case and before the verdict was out, he has prejudiced the hearing and called into question its integrity. Add to this the incredible sensitivity of this issue in Pakistan and you might imagine that a wise lawyer would insist that the evidence against the players is tested as robustly as possible by the defence.

The point of this is not to come up with some ruse to find the players not guilty. The point is to ensure that the process has been a proper and fair one. If after such a process the verdict stands then they must be punished--and let's be clear that the tribunal's decision to punish the players differently is barely credible. But my interpretation of the tribunal proceedings is that this was not an adequate process. How can justice be done without defence lawyers? If there was one lesson from the Hair controversy it was that you should never leave for a cricket hearing without a lawyer, better still a whole team of them.

The verdicts have been given face validity by whisperings from Shaharyar Khan and others around the team about their suspicions of Shoaib's illicit drug use. Well, if that is the case then when was that evidence produced at the hearing? If such senior people knew of such misdemeanours or even suspected them why was Shoaib allowed to play for Pakistan at all? If Shaharyar Khan knew, you can't tell me that Nasim Ashraf didn't.

The Pakistan Cricket Board is hoping that it will be given credit by the international community for its tough stance. Truly, all drug cheats must be banned. Unfortunately, gaining credibiilty is not simply about draconian punishments. It is also about due process. I fear that Pakistan's pace bowlers--guilty or not--have not had justice. If I were them and I were innocent, as they insist, I would appeal and I would beg and borrow to gather the best lawyers I could lay my hands on. These cricketers have been badly advised throughout their treatment and now through their disgrace. This whole incident has the hallmark of a peculiarly Pakistani muddle.

A PCB official has told Cricinfo that the players are responsible for this situation and were given a booklet explaining what is legal and what is illegal. This game of passing the buck is deplorable and offers a wonderful insight into why the PCB stumbles from one disaster to another.

Even the most highly educated individuals fail to absorb the majority of information delivered to them in seminars and booklets. Few people could tell you every ingredient in what they have eaten. Few patients have a good idea of the drugs they are being administered.

Asif and Shoaib might be utterly to blame but then again they might not and Shoaib has already protested his innocence.

This premature damnation from the PCB is embarrassing and it contrasts sharply with the message that Younis Khan and Bob Woolmer are sending out that the players, management, and administration must accept collective responsibility. The PCB should hold its tongue until it has got to the bottom of this sorry affair, an affair that has done much more damage to Pakistan cricket and the team's chances of winning the World Cup than the previous two disasters.

	Shoaib's exit is sure to dent, if not demolish, Pakistan's prospects of winning the Champions Trophy © Getty Images

It's official: This is the worst time in the history of Pakistan cricket. To lose your elite opening attack to injury is one thing, to lose it to suspicions of illegal drug use is quite another. The natural reaction is to hope that there was something wrong with the samples or the analysis. Shoaib's and Asif's lawyers will inevitably try that one. The next reaction is to come up with an extraordinary excuse for an humiliating finding. Expect them both to try that as well. Whether or not those lines of defence will achieve anything is yet to be seen but what this incredible turn of events has achieved is the demolition of Pakistan's prospects of winning the Champions Trophy. A win from here will be a miracle.

I have little sympathy for players who take performance enhancing drugs. The rules are clear. But I do have a little sympathy for the players, blissful ignorance is no excuse but it is partly understandable. It is their doctors, advisers, and cricket board that I have no sympathy for. It is these people who destroy careers through their arrogance and their negligence. It seems incredible to me--if true--that this is the first drug test performed by the PCB.

I am also baffled why they have been called back before the test was repeated? Laboratory tests are never 100% reliable.

We don't yet know the extent of the problem but Shane Warne ended up with a one-year ban when he got into trouble. A one-year ban would be a major setback for Asif and he might never recover though you would hope he would. A one-year ban for Shoaib would be as good as the end of his career.