Call it the price of controversy, not unlike the price of fame. Shaoib Akhtar needed knee surgery to remove floating bone fragments. But it would not be Pakistan’s knee specialist who would aid the Pakistan fast bowler.
In need of surgery, one leading Pakistan daily reports that Akhtar approaches one of the country’s leading knee specialists only to be denied.
Why would a high profile doctor deny the opportunity to heal one of the country’s, even cricket world’s, finest?
Well, the doctor gave the reason that the last thing he wanted was to be involved with Shoaib Akhtar’s case given that the latter has had a chequered international career that included getting banned for using banned substances and a host of trouble that would leave more people exasperated.
Knowing the kind of trouble Akhtar courts, deliberately or otherwise, the doctor has chosen his own integrity and preservation over his fifteen minutes of additional fame, even if it happens to the knee of a mercurial fast bowler.
Akhtar’s Knee Surgery: Closer to the End?
Part Deux: Pampered and Spoilt: When Cricketers Become Politicians and Celebrities
