If only Lee were Pakistani

Trevor Marshallsea and Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, note with some astonishment:

"BRETT Lee must wish he was Pakistani. Last week, Shoaib Akhtar bowled a beamer at India's Mahendra Dhoni in the second Test in Faisalabad. Not a chest-high full toss, the type of ball for which Lee has been so scorned, but a ball directed at the throat of the batsman. There was no raised hand in apology, no insistence the ball was accidental, as has happened with Lee. Shoaib's ball came after a long spell in the field during a turgid draw on a road-like pitch....Bob Woolmer said: "There is a lot of pent-up frustration around among the bowlers. The beamer was a sign of that frustration." Umpire Simon Taufel seemed to warn Shoaib as the paceman snatched his hat after the beamer which ended an over....Shoaib - who felled England's Ian Bell in December with a beamer said to be accidental - was chastised by former India paceman Javagal Srinath in a newspaper column, and that was about the extent of the reaction from all quarters. Bizarre."

To his credit, Waqar Younis had a strong word or two for Shoaib on the telly. And there it ended.