Nobody was with me, says Asif

Asif felt he was unfairly treated despite having a strong case in the IPL doping episode and said he would one day “tell everything” about what happened during that period.
“I had a very strong case, but they didn’t actually listen. Nobody was with me, the PCB were on the back foot. I was just alone and had to handle the whole thing,” said Asif who has just returned to Test cricket against Australia after being banned for a year for testing positive to nandrolone in the IPL last year.

“I will tell everything when the time will come. It’s not the right time to tell that,” he was quoted as saying by ‘Herald Sun’.

He said he thought his career was over after the dope flunk in the IPL. “It was a very difficult time for me. There were lots of things in my mind in that time. Sometimes I thought I would not be back. That was a tough period, but I continued my training and practising. Now I am very happy and I am playing good cricket.”

Asif first tested positive to nandrolone after he and fellow fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar failed a drug test at the Champions Trophy in India in 2006. Both had their bans overturned on appeal.

But drug controversies continued to shadow Asif, who is now banned from entering the United Arab Emirates after being stopped with a small quantity of opium at Dubai airport last year.

Asif also said that Australia is “not that much of a hard side” compared to the great team he encountered when he made his Test debut in Sydney in 2005.

“At the moment Australia is not that much of a hard side. When I first started in my first tour of Australia they were a very great side with Mathew Hayden and Damien Martyn and Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. At that time it was a great side, now they are just doing good.”