Before first Test, Urdu test for Shoaib Akhtar

Before the first Test, came another small test for Shoaib Akhtar. After a hectic practice session where he bowled relatively longer, even though not at full steam, the Rawalpindi Express was asked to display his Urdu writing skills by a young girl who came in requesting a personalised autograph from the speedster. "Urdu mein hi chaiye?" a surprised Akhtar asked, and then slowly scribbled the message on the piece of paper. Akhtar, who has been on an image-building exercise on this India tour, came out with flying colours today, at least.

Passport problems for Afridi & Co

•Shahid Afridi and Fawad Alam, who are supposed to fly back to Karachi, reached the airport on time for their departure with tickets in hand for the 2.30 pm flight. However, they had forgotten their passports. Apparently, the duo had taken the flight from Jaipur to the capital city, while the kitbags came on the bus. The passports were kept there. As a result, Afridi and Alam had a good four hours to kill, before boarding the indirect Delhi-Lahore-Karachi flight.

How about a Rolls Royce?

•Disturbed over the how the Pak media blew up the issue of three of their cricketers being made to stand in queue for customs clearance and no transport was made available for them to their hotel, a visibly upset Saleem Altaf, manager of the Pakistan team, retorted on Tuesday: "You knew that we were also travelling from Jaipur to Delhi, and we had also landed only then. We had informed our agent about their arrival, and he arrived there a bit late," he defended. The players had contacted the PCB for help, who in turn contacted the Pakistan International Airlines authorities for help. When asked about the buses being used to ply an international team, Altaf retorted: "What do you expect, should we ply the players in Rolls Royce cars?" In a country where cricketers, and everything around them are considered very important, this question had few answers.

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