Parore accuses Pakistani pacemen of dabbling in dope since the 90's

Adam Parore in the New Zealand Herald wrote a very interesting article about how this drug controversy just served to compound his already-held beliefs that Pakistani bowlers have been taking performance enhancing drugs for a while. Here are the relevant pieces of his column.

The only thing surprising about the two Pakistan players failing drugs tests is that it hasn't happened sooner. Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif failed tests for the steroid nandrolone and are out of the Champions Trophy. They have a hearing coming up this week and B samples to confirm the findings. If the results are confirmed they should have the book thrown at them, which means a two-year ban, although they might escape with a far shorter suspension, given that the Pakistan board is acting as the judicial panel.

I'm certain this has been going on for years with Pakistan's fast bowlers. We often looked sideways at what some of them were able to achieve. It's not normal to bowl 25 overs on a searing hot day and seem to get faster as the day wears on. I remember thinking more than once in the subcontinent, "somethings not right here". I prided myself on being pretty fit during my career. I'd look at some of these guys and think "you can't do that".

Well, naturally I was startled by his accusation. So I decided to see if atleast the games he played in showed something interesting or maybe alluded to the fact that the Pakistani fast bowlers might be doping. ....

Adam Parore has played only 2 tests in Pakistan, in the 1996/97 season.

New Zealand won the first one by 44 runs. Here are Pakistan's bowling figures for the first innings....

Bowling O M R W
Waqar Younis 15 3 48 4
Shahid Nazir 8 3 15 1
Mushtaq Ahmed 22.1 4 59 4
Saqlain Mushtaq 12 3 24 1

and the second innings....

Bowling O M R W
Waqar Younis 15 6 26 1
Shahid Nazir 16 1 84 1
Mushtaq Ahmed 32 8 84 6
Saqlain Mushtaq 22.2 4 95 2 (1nb)

Hmm...Nothing untoward here. Spinners routinely bowl large chunks of overs. But as Parore was talking about 25+ overs bowled in a day AND the bowler getting faster and faster, I assume he was talking about Waqar and Shahid, who bowled..well..you can read it yourself....less than 20 overs each.

It's possible that Shahid and Waqar bowled them at a stretch....did they? I read the match report as well. Nothing stood out here. Apparently NZ well and truly beat us on the 3rd day. Simon Doull doing most of the damage.

# Day 1: New Zealand 155, Pakistan 52/5 (Saleem Malik 11*, Moin Khan 5*)
# Day 2: Pakistan 191, New Zealand 88/3 (Fleming 12*, Astle 3*)
# Day 3: New Zealand 311, Pakistan 46/5 (Saleem Malik 15*, Mohammad Wasim 0*)

The kiwis only batted 57 overs on the first day. Got Pakistan all out by the middle of the 2nd. And batted till the 3rd. Which means Pakistan bowled at the kiwis in their 2nd innings on the 2nd and 3rd day. So, there is no way, anyone bowled a bunch of overs continously.

The tall and bearded paceman Simon Doull had destroyed the Pakistani batting by claiming five wickets for 46 runs in the first innings. He took three wickets for 39 runs in the second innings, despite having cramps in his thigh, to have a match haul of eight for 85. Simon Doull was declared the "Man-of-the-Match".

There is not much here about the Pakistani pace bowlers, except on the first day, when Waqar took 4 on a seaming track. But by then NZ was all out pretty soon after tea, and Waqar had bowled only 15 overs.
--------------------------------

Maybe the 2nd test had something funny occurrence happen? Maybe a fast bowler went crazy and bowled a 100 overs. Lets see.

Bowling O M R W
Mohammad Zahid 21 5 64 4 (9nb)
Shahid Nazir 9 3 23 0
Mohammad Akram 12 1 48 0
Mushtaq Ahmed 30 3 87 6
Saleem Malik 2 0 9 0 (1nb)

and...

Bowling O M R W
Mohammad Zahid 20 3 66 7 (12nb, 1w)
Mohammad Akram 7 2 11 0
Mushtaq Ahmed 22 7 52 2 (1nb)
Shahid Nazir 7 1 19 1
Saleem Malik 2 0 13 0

No need to write down the boring details, but one can infer from the match analysis, the number of overs....etc...that no fast bowler bowled more than 25 in a day. In fact, never more than 15.

# Day 1: New Zealand 215/8 (Germon 45*, Patel 6*)
# Day 2: New Zealand 249, Pakistan 269/2 (Saeed Anwar 130*, Mushtaq Ahmed 1*)
# Day 3: Pakistan 430, New Zealand 69/0 (Young 38*, Vaughan 26*)

This was Mohammad Zahid's debut. He got 7 wickets in the 2nd innings. But did he bowl his 20 overs at a stretch? I looked at the match report...

PAKISTAN completed an emphatic victory by an innings and 13 runs against New Zealand in the second and final Test at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium to draw the Wills Series.

The match was over a mere 53 minutes after lunch on the fourth day, when New Zealand, who were facing a first-innings deficit of 181, were shattered by 20-year-old medium-pacer Mohammad Zahid to be all out for 168 after having resumed at 69 without loss.

Zahid, from Gaggu Mandi in the Punjab, near the village where Waqar Younis hails from, pulverised the Kiwis' batting by taking seven wickets for 66 to finish with match figures of 11 for 130 to secure the man of the match award and also become the first Pakistan bowler to capture 10 wickets or more on his debut.

Of medium height but with a strong shoulder, Zahid started his rout with the first five of the six wickets that fell before lunch to reduce New Zealand to 137 for six. Moving the ball both ways and extracting a great deal of swing off the pitch, he was too hot to handle once Justin Vaughan was lbw for 27 after sharing an opening stand of 82 with Bryan Young.

Adam Parore, dropped by Inzamam-ul-Haq in the slips off leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed when one, was Zahid's next victim, rapped on the pad in front of the wicket as the ball cut back. Young, the only player to bat with authority, hit 61, with six fours in 174 minutes, before slashing a catch to gully. When captain Lee Germon was deceived off a swinging yorker and Nathan Astle fell lbw, Zahid had taken five for 47 in 11 overs, his first five-wicket Test haul.

I still don't know how many overs were bowled in the 3rd day when New Zealand were batting. But I can make some assumptions...

They ended that day at 69 runs. If they went at 3 runs an over, 23 overs were bowled. If 5 runs an over, then 14 overs were bowled. Since its the new ball, we can assume all the bowlers were pacemen. Since Zahid bowled 20 overs in that innings total, he could have bowled up to 12 of those overs, or 7 at a minimum.

Point being....Parore is has no basis for his accusations....