Sucking it Up

Some of you who know me in real life know that apart from blogging and Les Mills, I'm a big cricket fan. I even tried writing a cricket blog for a while, but was spectacularly bad at it. I don't have that much of a cricketing brain, but when I watch it and read about it, I enjoy soaking up as much of it as I can. I played social women's cricket for one season a few years ago when I was studying, and again, was spectacularly bad at it - never mind I was reminded of how bitchy women can be when it comes to competitive situations. I was a social player in a social team, though due to the drought of women's teams, we were placed in a competitive tournament. The only games we ever won were by default, and whenever we won the toss, we would always bat first so that we could lose faster and be home by 2pm.

It's very rare that cricket and body image concerns interlink, and the last time I wrote about it, it was regarding New Zealand cricketer Jesse Ryder, and ridicules about his weight. He's still having issues discipline wise, but he's been delivering when it comes to on field performance.

Now, some other cricket related news caught my interest.

I saw this headline in a cricket news feed in my feed reader which had me thinking, "Seriously?"

Liposuction rules out controversial cricketer

HUH?!

I ain't kidding, that's a real article there. And here, and here.

In summary, for those of you who don't know/don't care about cricket, the cricketer in question - Shoaib Akhtar - used to play for Pakistan as a fast bowler. (bowler = the one that sends the ball down to the guy with the bat). He hasn't been selected to play for Pakistan for quite some time, due to several reasons - injuries, discipline, poor form, etc.

So what is the reason behind the liposuction?

This paragraph from the article describes his motives pretty accurately.

Previously one of the world's most feared fast bowlers, Akhtar had grown so out of shape in recent months that he decided to have fat sucked from his midriff in a bid to return to the game slimmer and faster.

It seems as though he was tapping into the perception of thinner = fitter. If he appeared to be thinner, then maybe the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would consider him for selection, thinking that he was back to prime fitness. Because, after all [sarcasm] thinness is the one and only indication of fitness [/sarcasm].

What I was pleasantly surprised to find was how the deputy director general of the Pakistan Sports Board - Dr Waqar Ahmad - saw right through the cunning plan.

''The liposuction is a kind of cosmetic procedure and has nothing to do with the fitness of a player,'' Ahmad said.

''Mostly it is done for improving the figure and other cosmetic reasons whereas the shedding of weight of more than 12 kilograms might help him only when he will improve his muscle strength and stamina.

And I absolutely adore this last paragraph.

''Liposuction is not a kind of procedure which makes cricketers stronger,'' he said. ''The main factor in performance is agility, strength and stamina along with skill; therefore, I don't think that this procedure will get any popularity among the other cricketers.''

Good to see that fitness is still valued as fitness, rather than thinness being masqueraded as fitness.