Cricket: Ball-biting Afridi full of excuses

Shahid Afridi. Photo / Getty Images

SYDNEY - Controversial Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi has made a meal of an apology for his bizarre ball-biting incident, saying every cricket side in the world tampers with the ball.

Afridi will miss Friday's tour-ending Twenty20 clash against Australia at the MCG after being slapped with a two-match ban for chomping on the ball in Sunday night's one-dayer in Perth.

He told Pakistan's Geo TV that all sides tamper with the ball.

"I am embarrassed - I have made a mistake," he said. "I was frustrated because the Pakistan team hasn't won any match for quite some time.

"I am not a fast bowler who would tamper the ball. I was just trying to help the bowler.

"There is no team in the world that doesn't tamper with the ball but my approach was wrong."

Afridi said he was ashamed of the mistake, made even worse by the fact that he was the stand-in skipper for the match.

"I apologise to all and everyone involved in the match and to the fans around the world," he said. "This will never happen again."

Meanwhile, Pakistan great Javed Miandad has added weight to calls for a change to the Pakistan Cricket Board hierarchy, describing chairman Ijaz Butt as too old for the position.

"The chairman has become too old for the position he is holding as he seldom remembers his own important official commitments and agreements," said Miandad, who is also a PCB director general, wrote in a letter to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.

Zardari is also the patron of the PCB and was responsible for appointing the 71-year-old Butt as chairman in 2008 in place of Nasim Ashraf.

Miandad also said he was not happy with the working style of the PCB chief.

Miandad wrote the letter last month after Butt publicly alleged that the PCB paid Miandad a monthly salary of 10 million rupees (about $1600).

Miandad said he was paid just over half the amount Butt had claimed.

The PCB director of cricket academies Aamir Sohail, chief operating officer Salim Altaf and chief selector Abdul Qadir all resigned last year after differences with Butt.

- AAP, AP