Three greats from Pakistan shine among Hall of Famers

[LahoreEstate]

Not since 1909, when the ICC made Lord’s Cricket Ground its headquarters, till its move to Dubai in 2005 for tax purposes did it venture to honour the greats of the game in a Hall of Fame in their centenary year.


At the turn of the century even the reputed ‘Wisden Almanack’ came out with their own such line-up through voting the ‘Five Greatest Cricketers of the Century’. I am privileged to say that I was one of the voters and also had recommended the names of some from Pakistan.

What surprised me, however, in the choice of 55 players for the Hall of Fame was the absence of the some of the illustrious figures of the game in Sri Lanka like Arjuna Ranatunga, Aravinda De Silva and Sanath Jaysuriya.

That none of the Zimbabweans or the Bangladeshi figured in the list was quite understandable. It could be argued over and over again.

However, what pleased me most was to see the names of three Pakistanis, Hanif Mohammed, Javed Miandad and Imran Khan. In their own right, all the three are legendary cricketing figures, a household name of their time.

That the ICC chose not to have the elegant Zaheer Abbas in the list was for me a huge disappointment. A batsman of impeccable record of being the only player from the sub-continent to score a hundred of hundreds in first class cricket, to have scored a double century and a century and all unbeaten innings in four first-class games was qualification enough in itself. His turn may come in the next lot, I am sure.

What really I am proud of is that of the 55 players named in the Hall of Fame, I am lucky to have seen or met fifty of them with Sir W.G.Grace, Sydney Barnes, Wally Hammond, George Headley and Sir Jack Hobbs being the five exceptions.

Hobbs, who made 197 first-class centuries, had died a year before I landed on the English soil in 1964. But I did see his sports shop inthe heart of Fleet Street, then the hub of journalism.

For me it will be tough to describe all those fifty men that I had the experience of meeting and seeing over the years. Luckily for me I

played with or against few of them or bowled at them in the nets.

Two games with Sunil Gavaskar for the West Indies press and for the Indian press at Leeds and at Jamaica have fond memories. A match against Border for British press was even a lot more satisfying. I think, however, that my focus should remain on three Pakistanis whom I came to know well as a reporter of this game.

Hanif’s inclusion in the list is more than deserving. To date no Pakistan batsman, and I have seen them all, had a better technique or the unflinching power of concentration of the ‘Little Master’. I have first hand experience of the man against whom I was always pitted in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, playing for Sind and Hyderabad.

Coached by Abdul Aziz Durrani, father of the Indian all-rounder Salim Durrani he lacked nothing. Even Alf Gover at his coaching school in Wandsworth in London had told him that he was so goods that he couldn’t teach him anything.

Last week, it was exactly fifty years when he went past Don Bradman’s 452 when he was run out for 499 against Bahawalpur at the Karachi Parsi Institute. The year was memorable for the fact that only a match before that game I had taken his wicket playing for Sind but not before he hit 129. His highest first-class record score was later overtaken by Brian Lara when he amassed 501 against Durham for Warwickshire.

Hanif’s marathon innings was just after his 337 at Bridgetown in Barbados in a Test to save Pakistan from a humiliating defeat.

I also witnessed his 187* at Lord’s in 1967 when he pulverized John Snow and Ken Higgs with his masterly exhibition of batsmanship. Twirling his bat, touching his cap and a final touch of his gloves on his waistline was his hallmark before he took strike after every ball.

Watching 17-year-old Imran Khan’s debut at Edgbaston in 1971 I thought to myself, who the hell this boy is. He couldn’t bowl straight and was taken off. But that wouldn’t let him surrender as he polished his game at Worcestershire, Oxford University and later at Sussex.

John Snow, the great English fast bowler changed his action and that brought the thrust that he needed to devastate the batsmen in every nook and corner of the world. Nice flowing run-up, a leap and release turned him into the most fearsome of fast bowlers of his era.

And as time passed he delivered as a batsman and captain. There is no two ways about his ability as a player. When he shattered the might of Indian batting in a home series taking 40 wickets, I asked Gavaskar as to how to face such fast bowling. He told me, ‘by only putting a screen between Imran and the batsman.’ The World Cup victory was another feather in his cap. Oh, what a cricketer.

Javed Miandad was special too. A child prodigy, he never let his talent fade till he hung his boot. In 1974 when he was introduced to me in London he was playing in Bolton League in Lancashire which was run by Jimmy Irani, a Karachiite and father of Ronnie Irani.

Recommended by Sadiq Mohammed for a county contract he made a double hundred in a trial game for Sussex second XI. Played for Sussex and later for Glamorgan. Making a hundred on his debut at Lahore against New Zealand and ended with a double century in the same series that I covered. In fact, I covered most of his 23 hundreds in Tests.

Javed was the most complete batsman and the most intimidating. He would tease the bowlers, the fielders, even joke with the umpires while batting. The Indian spinner Dilip Doshi and the captain then, Gavaskar told me that while batting against the spinner Doshi he would ask his room number in the hotel after every delivery bowled.

An annoyed Doshi wouldn’t take it any more from him and told Javed to keep quiet and bat and do what he was supposed to do. When Doshi, irritated by the gesture, finally questioned the logic of asking his room number Javed replied, ‘I would hit you in your room for a six, you are bowling so poorly.’A great accumulator of runs, he remains the highest run-maker in Tests for Pakistan in 124 Test. It has been nice to know them. Like most who played for Pakistan, Hanif, Imran and Javed remain the pride of Pakistan.

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