The drugs don't work

Did you see the news earlier that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif will not have their bans for doping reinstated by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS)? You know the story, I'm sure: two Pakistan fast bowlers test positive for performance-enhancing drugs, are banned in November last year, the bans are overturned on a technicality a month later and so the World Anti-Doping Authority takes the case to CAS, which has taken seven months to return the verdict that, er, "It's nothing to do with us, guv, the Pakistan Cricket Board doesn't recognise our authority."

Can I get away with that next time I am given a parking ticket? I don't recognise the authority of the traffic wardens round our way. They are a bunch of ill-educated sadists who work for an unelected private firm contracted by a local authority who I didn't vote for. I don't recognise them at all, so it's not right that I should pay up. Hmmm... might work.

Ignoring, for a second, why it has taken CAS so long to say that they can't overturn it, why on earth can't they? The ICC recognises CAS, so surely that should be good enough. Why does the ICC not have the power to ban players who have passed drugs tests, even if the tests were conducted by a subject body? It seems ludicrous, but then the ICC is more bothered with giving its World Cup umpires hair shirts for the bad light fiasco in the final than with ensuring fair play. If it wasn't for the fact that I rather like seeing Shoaib and Asif bowl (yes, I'm very shallow), I'd be calling on Pakistan's next opponents (India, in Glasgow on Tuesday) to refuse to play them.

Anyway, my main view on this, as stated before, is: everyone knows that the bowlers misbehaved and there is a strong suspicion that the reason that the two did not go to the World Cup was because they did not take, and thus did not pass, a mandatory drugs test back in March. Let that be their punishment: they let their country down and their team-mates lost to Ireland as a result. Shame on them, now let's get on with the game. The only tests I want to hear about for the next few months should begin with a capital T.