May 19, 2002

MOSTLY coming in to bat at one wicket down, Waqar Hasan dominated Pakistan’s Test cricket during the decade of the fifties. In his foreword to the autobiography, the Little Master, the legendary Hanif Mohammad, writes, “Waqar Hasan was not only a handsome looking member of the side who played for Pakistan in the fifties but also a very graceful and stylish batsman.”

In the formative years of country’s cricket, a game most popular with the Pakistanis, he played Test cricket alongwith the giants such as A.H. Kardar, Fazal Mahmood, Imtiaz Ahmed, Hanif Mohammad, Wazir Mohammad, Zulfiqar Ahmed, Khan Mohammad and Mahmood Hussain. Since the game already had roots in the regions which became Pakistan, international cricket matches started soon after Partition.

Teams from the Commonwealth, West Indies, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and MCC made visits to play representative games and unofficial Tests against Pakistan. But it was not till October 1952 that the Pakistan cricket team embarked on a tour of India for a five Test series. After losing the first Test at Delhi, Pakistan avenged the defeat in the second Test at Lucknow. Pakistan again lost the third Test at Mumbai and drew the games at Madras and Calcutta. In the Mumbai Test, Waqar Hasan scored 83 solid runs in the first innings and 65 in the second. His splendid knock of 97 at Kolkata, helped Pakistan in avoiding another defeat.

The team went to England in the summer of 1954. The English team was led by Sir Len Hutton, who at that time held the record of the highest score of 364 in a Test innings. The team comprised renowned players such as Denis Compton, Brian Statham, Tom Graveney, Peter May, Trevor Bailey, Jim Laker, Godfrey Evans and Alec Bedser. Pakistan lost the Test at Lords but recorded the historic win at the Oval, whereby the four Test series was levelled.

In this tour, Waqar Hasan’s highest score in Tests was 53 and he averaged 32.38 in matches with the English Counties and other teams.

For Pakistan, the first official Test series at home was against India in 1954-55. All the five Test matches were drawn and the tour turned out to be drab and dreary.

Pakistan hosted New Zealand for the first time during the 1955-56 season and also the MCC ‘A’ team to play a series of unofficial Tests. Led by John Reid, New Zealand lost the three match series 2-0. In the match at Bagh-e-Jinnah, Lahore, Waqar Hasan played the best innings of his career scoring 189 runs in partnership with Imtiaz Ahmed who scored 209 runs. Waqar Hasan also played against Australia at Karachi during 1956-57. The one-off Test was played on a matting wicket. Fazal Mahmood, whose leg cutters were unplayable on a matting wicket, took 13 wickets for 114 runs thus inflicting a defeat on Australia.

Waqar was selected for Pakistan’s tour of West Indies in 1957-58. West Indies were a strong side and comprised names like Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes. Pakistan lost the five Test series by 1-3, but it was a series to be remembered. There was Hanif Mohammad’s record breaking longest innings of nearly three and a half days to make 337 runs. The second was the West Indian player, Garfield Sobers’ unbeaten 365 surpassing the highest individual score in a Test by Len Hutton. Soon after West Indies paid a return visit to Pakistan in 1958-59. They lost the three match series by 2-1. Waqar played only one Test at Lahore and scored 41 and 28 in the two innings. He played the last Test of his career against Australia in Lahore during the 1959-60 series.

Waqar ended his Test career with a batting average of 31.50 and of First Class cricket at 35.65. He played most of the Tests under the captaincy of Abdul Hafeez Kardar and holds him in high esteem both as a team leader and as an all rounder cricketer.

Waqar took early retirement from Test cricket to concentrate on his business in Karachi. He is currently the Corporate Director of a successful enterprise National Foods Limited. Having devoted his youth to playing cricket for Pakistan, Waqar has not alienated himself from the game altogether. He has been associated with cricket as a chief selector, selector, chairman technical committee, manager of the national team to Sharjah tournaments, treasurer of the Pakistan Cricket Board and a member of the advisory council of the cricket board.

Waqar writes that in fifty years of watching international cricket, he has seen many great pairs of fast bowlers but no one compares to Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, a pair of bowlers of varying variety whom he always ranked the best. In retrospect, Waqar thinks that the Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer did great service by introducing one-day cricket. This brought a new lease of life into the game because of its capacity to generate finances and its mass appeal as a result-oriented game. At the same time, he is saddened because of the recent menace of allegations of match-fixing and bribery against various players and teams.

Like all the books on cricket or autobiographies of cricketers, For cricket and country, is full of statistics from Test and First Class matches played during the fifties. It also captures the excitement and aspirations of budding cricketers of a new nation, who created sensation in the world of cricket by defeating India, England and the West Indies in one Test each during their debut visits to those countries.

The book also contains photographs of that particular cricketng era, which are rare and have been printed for the first time. It makes interesting reading and takes you back in time when people were glued to their radios listening to the running commentary on Test matches,never expecting Pakistan to lose.

 

For cricket and country: an autobiography

By Waqar Hasan with Qamar Ahmed

A Cricket Print Publication, Karachi Tel: 021-5662687

181pp. Rs350

(All proceeds will go to the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Lahore)

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