It was on January 23 this year that I thought I was writing sort of an obituary, describing the highs and lows of one of Pakistan's most popular yet enigmatic cricketers -- Shoaib Akhtar.

It appeared in the next day's edition of 'The News' with a headline, screaming "Rawalpindi Express comes to a grinding halt".

This is how the story read: It's game over for Shoaib Akhtar, finally! After surviving career-threatening injuries, doping controversies, illegal bowling action, bans and hefty fines imposed on him by the cricket authorities over repeated breaches of discipline during a happening 12-year international career, the 'Rawalpindi Express' has once again come to a grinding halt. This time, according to insiders in the Pakistan team and the PCB think-tank, Shoaib will be axed from the national squad for good. "Shoaib Akhtar is finished. He is history," a team official, who requested anonymity, told 'The News'. According to the official, the current ODI series against Sri Lanka was Shoaib's last chance to prove his form and fitness. "He (Shoaib) promised a lot but failed to deliver. It's quite obvious that he is past his prime and it's time that we should overlook him to blood some youngsters in the side."

Things, however, didn't go the way that report predicted they will.

Just a few weeks later, Shoaib was recalled to Pakistan's 15-man squad for the one-day series against Australia in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That was not all. In spite of the fact that the fast bowler clearly failed to prove that he was match fit, the national selectors also included him in Pakistan's squad for next month's World Twenty Championship in England.

But in Shoaib's case, nothing can be taken for granted. On May 21, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) finally decided that the pacer will not be accompanying the touring party for the June 5-21 spectacle as he is suffering from a bout of "genital warts".

This time, several other scribes have decided against resisting the temptation of penning down obituaries on Shoaib's international career and told their readers that the run of the injury-prone player is finally over.

This writer, however, is unwilling to make any such sweeping statement, any more.

Its not that one believes Shoaib, at the ripe old age of 33 and with such a long history of injuries and other health problems, has anything left in him to make a successful international comeback. But making predictions is risky business especially in a culture where cricket administrators are prone to taking whimsical decisions without thinking about the repercussions of their bad calls.

Recalling Shoaib after he misfired during his comeback assignment -- the one-day series against Sri Lanka -- this January was one such poor and miscalculated call.

The simple logic given by Abdul Qadir, the chief selector, behind the bowler's selection was "if he is fit Shoaib is an asset for Pakistan cricket". Qadir, a former Test spinner, was quick to underline the fact that Shoaib had passed a series of strenuous fitness tests and was bowling at an express speed that neared the 150 km/h mark in practice sessions.

A that time, one had little reasons to dispute the chief selector's verdict that the 'experienced' Shoaib was fit and was itching to hurl his express deliveries at the second string Australian team in the one-day series in Abu Dhabi. After all, he was eye witness to "a series of tough fitness tests" which Shoaib supposedly passed with flying colours.

Sadly, what Qadir had predicted never really happened. Shoaib was unable to finish his quota of ten overs in any of the four One-day Internationals he played during the series and could just deliver two overs in the one-off Twenty20 International that was staged at the Dubai Sports City on May 7.

It was the sort of performance that should have prompted the PCB bosses, national selectors and the team management to finally close what is easily one of the most controversial chapters of Pakistan cricket.

But Pakistan cricket's think-tank had other ideas. Shoaib's below-par showing was not only defended, the pacer was rewarded with a place in the 15-man squad for the World Twenty20 Championship at the expense of the hard-working and supremely-fit Rao Iftikhar Anjum. It was yet another baffling decision and raised question marks over the credibility of the people at the helm of national cricket affairs.

A few days later, Shoaib decided against attending a high-altitude conditioning camp that was set up at posh hill resort of Bhurban. The bowler said that a skin problem forced him out of the five-day exercise that was aimed at helping the England-bound players to attain peak fitness ahead of the Twenty20 assignment.

The PCB, however, was still willing to give him another chance and asked the player to feature in a series of practice matches played at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore last week. It was only after its Medical Board declared Shoaib unfit for the England tournament that the PCB finally decided to drop him from the squad.

One wonders why Shoaib manages to get such special treatment from the PCB, no matter who is heading the organisation. There was a time when many critics described him as Tauqir Zia's blue-eyed boy, while other PCB chairmen like Shaharyar Khan and Nasim Ashraf also showed a rather soft corner for him. Ijaz Butt, the current PCB boss, is no exception.

It's true that Shoaib has been punished as well, getting banned and asked to pay heavy fines time and again in the past. But most of the time the bans were overturned and the fact that he mostly didn't pay the fines was overlooked.

One wonders why Shoaib has, over the years, managed to extract such leniency from the PCB management.

Perhaps, initially it was his sheer pace and his ability to take wickets. It may also have been his popularity and his status as the world's fastest bowler.

But that was a long time ago. Shoaib has not put in a match-winning show since an impressive yet brief burst against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in January 2007. It earned him four wickets and helped Pakistan to win their only match during that Test series.

During the last three or four years, Shoaib has mostly made headlines because of his knack for flirting with disaster. In the fall of 2006, he tested positive for banned anabolic steroid nandolone and was pulled out of the ICC Champions Trophy in India.

In February 2007, he was dropped from Pakistan's World Cup squad and though the PCB claimed the move was prompted because of injury-related problems, many suspected that Shoaib was not sent to the Caribbean because of the fears that he might fail a dope test again.

Later that year, Shoaib missed the first World Twenty20 Championship because he was sent back home from South Africa after hitting team-mate Mohammad Asif with a cricket bat in the dressing room.

It was that offence as well as a series of other disciplinary breaches that forced the PCB to ban him for five years last April. But a few months later, Shoaib was back in business and took part in the 2008 Four-nation Twenty20 event in Toronto, Canada.

Before that, Shoaib publicly accused Nasim Ashraf, the then PCB chief, of corruption. It is perhaps, such candid outbursts against the authorities that keep the PCB management under pressure.

Some conspiracy theorists have even suggested that Shoaib always manages to have his way because of his 'connections' among the political elite of the country. Some say that he is on very good terms with a key figure in the Asif Zardari-led government while others point towards a certain provincial governor, who has supposedly lifted him out of problematic situations in the past.

Whatever the reasons, Shoaib has managed to survive in the otherwise cutthroat world of international cricket without doing what he used to do best, once upon a time -- bowling fast and bowling well.

It's about time that the curtain falls on his controversial yet colourful career because Pakistan cricket needs to move on. There are plenty of exciting fast bowlers around and the country's cricket managers will have to show more faith in them. There are quality pacers like Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Talha, Anwar Ali, Mohammad Ramiz, Wahab Riaz and many others, who can been groomed into world-class wicket-takers. In contrast, there is little or no hope that Shoaib will ever be able to regain the sort of form that once made him the scourge of batsmen around the world.

The Rawalpindi Express certainly had his moments but his time is up.

If Shoaib is unwilling to give up competitive cricket then he could go back to the Indian Premier League (IPL) which has plenty of retired cricketers in its fold and some of them like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist are doing really well. If Shoaib has any hope of a future in cricket, it lies in cash-rich Twenty20 leagues like the IPL where he could continue to be a showman. Same, however, cannot be said about his Pakistan career.

In scorching heat, violence-stricken children, females and elders were standing in long queues waiting to receive aid items sent by various organisations and philanthropists. This is a usual scene at the designated relief camps of Kacha Gari, Jalozai, Benazir and Sheikh Shahzad at Peshawar, Swabi, Mardan, Nowshehra and Risalpur districts.

According to UNHCR estimates, there are more than 1.3 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the relief camps. The majority comprises of children, youth and women who are traumatised by the ongoing conflict between Taliban and armed forces in FATA and other areas of NWFP. This is one of the largest internal displacements in the world history that has occurred because of conflict situation and has brought radical changes in the landscape of humanitarian assistance to follow.

This unique occurrence may force the foreign aid agencies and government to modify their ways to address the post conflict situation in the area. One of these major changes is a moment away from exclusively material form of intervention to now a heavier focus on public health programs, part of which includes mental health care of the victims.

Undoubtedly the main focus of any early emergency intervention in a conflict or disaster relief is to offer food, shelter, clothing, medical aid and family re-unification. In the early stages of an emergency, when the assessment and establishment of response needs are still being completed, the quick re-establishment of simple cultural activities like sports, play areas and religious practices in the affected community can make a significant and quick contribution in the stabilisation of the situation.

While staring at the wide stretched camps of Benazir and Jalozai where white canvas tents were pitched like coffins, the flashback of famous Sabra and Shatila camps came to my mind where Palestinian civilians were massacred ruthlessly during Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. President Yasir Arafat than frequently visited the camps and used to play table tennis with the youth in camps. The media spoke out against the practice as it was at that time not an approved and established activity to address trauma through sport. Arafat responded to the media outburst by stating a historic statement that "if the Palestinian youth are not taken out of the trauma by employing all possible means including sport these camps will become their psychological burial grounds". The statement stood the test of time and Palestinian youth came out even stronger from Sabra and Shatela.

Since 1982 the situation has changed rapidly and a lot of research has gone in the area of using sport as an affective tool in addressing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The research has now proved that sport has a crucial role in the optimal growth, learning and development of children from infancy through adolescence. It addresses the development of children at physical, cognitive, emotional and social levels that is very much required in our complex society marked by stress and terror.

Through sports, children and youth can become sensitive to others need and values, learn to handle exclusion and dominance, manage their emotions, and learn self control. Plus share power, space and ideas with others. Psychologists believes that play is also necessary for assisting children to master emotional traumas and disturbances.

The NWFP government has taken an initiative under the livelihood development project in FATA to establish a sports program and use sports as a tool for education and social development. However, the implementing body must remember the complexity of the subject before its initiation as it's not a usual sport programme where couples of cricket or football matches are organised to attract media and donor attention without a sustainable outcome.

It is a well known fact that children particularly adolescents need role models in form of coaches and elders from within the society and camps that we desperately lack. These coaches provide structured opportunities to actively help and give back to their community through assisting and supporting the community's children and youth in these activities which also help these coaches to address their own unresolved trauma. It would thus be wise to first study the best practices in this complicated area before using sport in conflict, disaster and post conflict scenarios. The sport projects of Iran, Columbia, the Beslan in North Ossetia and post-tsunami projects in Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Uganda and Sera Leon could provide guidance to newly-conceived sport initiative as in FATA.

The FATA sport department may or may not have the capacity and expertise to carry out this humongous task in given security situation at scale, yet it would not be difficult to incubate a proto type sport related program for the IDPs of Swat, Buner and Dir districts, learn from its out come, refine and than proceed further.

The NWFP government may like to approach UNESCO for the relief and assistance in sports for IDPs project as UNESCO besides education is bound to help and assist sport programs under article 1 of the international charter of physical education and sport. Its "Sport in a box" program is an excellent intervention that includes several types of balls, skipping ropes, whistle and scoring slates to organise and play verity of sport in a confined environment.

Pakistan is one of the biggest sports goods exporters in the world. Like UNESCO the sport goods exporters in Pakistan should also realise their corporate social responsibility and come forward to help the suffering youth of FATA and NWFP by not only donating relief items but also sports gear that can be utilised for launching sport programs for internally displaced children and youth in the designated relief camps.

It is, however, recommended that the true effectiveness of using sport as an intervention to help children to overcome suffering and disaster is not only in competition but in cooperation, not in winning or losing but in process of participating in a supportive group. The executing agency should also be mindful of the selection of sports and games to be played in camps under the watchful eyes of coaches and sport psychologists to achieve the necessary outcome, other wise the effort will perish like a blind following a blind.

In the absence of formal school structure in the relief camps, sports, recreation and play can provide a way to educate children during and after the conflict, helping youth to heal and make a new start in life. This activity would help in rehabilitation of traumatised children and help them to reintegrate into society by developing the community spirit.

The successful initiation of a well thought out sport programme would certainly attract the donor support and this could well be a turning point in the history of Pakistan sport that is surrounded by the clouds of distress, misfortune and uncertainty.

The writer is a qualified IOC Coach

qureshiab@hotmail.com