Irresponsible

Drugs?

FICA chairman Tim May’s warning of players might resort to drugs to fight fatigue is completely irresponsible. It’s a threat and an insensitive one. Is he trying to legitimate the use of drug? Will he come out one of these days and blame ICC for handing a ban to Shane Warne for drugs use? If the job pressure or social pressure or any other reasons forces people to illegal activities such as drug use or stealing, who should be punished? Mr. Tim May needs to be told that international cricketers are not the only ones with a demanding job. Billions others all over the world in all kind of professions including sports deal with a lot of pressures and very few get engaged into anti social solutions for their problems.

With the increase in amount of cricket played, a very good support structure also started to appear. From not even having a coach now teams have all kind of support staff to help them with their primary task which is to play cricket for their team. What will he choose given a choice, a 10 year sporting career with enough in the bank to last a lifetime or 20 years career with 20% of matches played by a modern cricketer and still looking for a job after retirement?

One statement where he was spot on was that top players can’t play all the games. And apparently the problem is public wants to watch top players. If this is the case then he or anyone need not be worried at all. If the matches without top stars are not anyone wants to watch naturally they can’t go on for ever. Market forces will settle it down. If ICC is all about money making then these games will loose money and administrators will have to shun those.

So Mr. May please raise the issues for welfare of cricketers but do not legitimize illegal acts such as drug use. It just feels like you need to be in news anyhow all the time. I have lost a lot of respect for you.