A few days ago, it was reported that Shoaib Malik was hopeful of making a comeback to the Pakistan team for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka; and keeping that in mind he had turned down county offers.

He also claimed that the counties had required that he sign a contract to choose county over country in case he was invited for Pakistan duty.

I doubted that any county contract would have that clause.


Just two days since Malik claimed to have those offers, Hampshire and Essex have come out and said that they never made any offer to Shoaib Malik!

Oh Malik, how you have been caught red handed trying to fool the public, the selectors, and the board.

What a liar.

So its come to this where Shoaib Malik will do anything to get back into the good books of the people that matter? He will resort to lies and dirty tactics to try and win the people's favour, and that of the selectors?

Malik was in miserable form throughout last year. After he was dropped and brought back on Misbah's request for the series in England, he failed terribly.

There is no reason for Malik to be in the Pakistan squad. There is no room for him there either.

No reason because of his utterly shit international form - I really don't think that domestic form counts for anything if you keep failing continuously in international cricket.

And no room because of his continuous lies, manipulation, and politicking.

Every single senior played had a problem with him when he first became captain. Yousuf, Afridi, Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar, and even Younis Khan who doesn't generally get involved in petty politics had issues with Shoaib Malik's presence as the team leader.

Not because he was a junior cricketer leading them on the field, but because he was a spineless idiot who became Nasim Ashraf's puppet and almost destroyed the careers of Mohammad Yousuf and Abdul Razzaq.

It is no secret that he has time and again returned to the international fold on the back of political pressure. Why else would an out of form cricketer be selected repeatedly.

Enough is enough now.

With all this tainted history, and the recent lies in an effort to manipulate the selectors and fans minds, Shoaib Malik needs to be kept away from the Pakistan cricket team for good.

Please!

I have been part of a number of such discussions, even moreso during the IPL.

Adam Gilchrist used to be a unanimous choice as the first one to do it, but he had moved on to greater things.

Sanath Jayasuriya and Shahid Afridi are other names that have been thrown around. The former is in his final few years, while the latter can't last 34 deliveries.

Bopara's unbeaten knock came off only 138 deliveries with the help of 10 sixes and 18 fours.

He became the 7th batsmen in the history of List A cricket to get to 200.

Only 3 of those 7 batsmen have played international cricket - Alvin Kallicharan and Alistair Brown being the other 2.

Ali Brown has achieved the feat twice and he's played a handful of ODIs for England.

Bopara was one of the several England cricketers who claimed to have declined an offer to play in the IPL. The reason given was to concentrate on cementing positions in the England side.

Bopara has done himself no harm - he will probably be named in the ODI squad to take on the Kiwis later this month, and this innings will also go some way in fetching him a higher price for next year's IPL.

Well done Ravi Bopara.

I'm not sure how good the Leicester bowling attack was, but a 201* in a 50 over game is an amazing feat.

Who will do it first in ODIs?

That we still don't know.