Pakistan: the incorrigible bad boy of cricket

Australian icons Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh once bet against their own team at 500-to-1 odds, went on to lose the match (the famous Headingely Test of the 1981 Ashes series), and pocketed huge wads of cash. Shane Warne, another Australian icon, was found using a banned steroid, and also got into trouble sending unwanted text messages with lewd content. And let us not forget that Hansie Cronje -- the only player so far to have confessed to match-fixing in cricket -- was not a Pakistani but a South African.

Yet you don’t see Australia or South Africa derided as thieves or cheats, and the idea of suspending these teams from the ICC does not even remotely cross the mind. Cronje even died in mysterious circumstances when a chartered plane in which he was a passenger crashed inexplicably, but the matter was glossed over. Clearly, Pakistan is not the only international team to which bad things happen. But the stigma sits heavier on Pakistan.