We'll decide, thanks

I'd predicted in a post made on this blog that the PCB would not take severe action against Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif - in response to their failing dope tests. The groundwork for that turn of events has been laid already as this report on the PCB's doping tribunal notes, "the PCB said it will make its own decision on any punishment since the tests were conducted internally." Ah, well. There goes that.

Given that both players had declined to have their B samples tested, which is as close to an admission of guilt as you will get from these two, we could be looking at the latest act of the PCB to make the unequivocal statement that is their trademark: we find the laws of the game and its governing organizations particularly inconvenient.