THE tour was winding down and we had done a lot of travelling. We had played cricket and also been invited to many parties. But, in not one of these parties, did we encounter a single African guest. I had pointed this out to our gracious hostess in Tanga who had given the team a reception at her sprawling ranch house. She had told me that if she had known I was keen to meet some Africans, she would have invited a few. “It’s their country,” I told her.
There were still a few matches to be played in Nairobi. It was during one of these matches, actually I was batting at the time, when I was informed that the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring wanted to meet me and had sent a car to take me to Government House. This sounded like a summons though I was tempted to say that I had got my eye in and had no intention of getting out early. I didn’t. I retired, took off my pads, put on the blazer and got into the car. I realized I was still wearing my cricket boots.
When I met Sir Evelyn, I apologised for being dressed in my cricket flannels. He said that he had not realized that I was a playing-member of the team. “Somebody has got to do the fielding,” I told him. It was not a formal interview, question and answer, but more of a discussion and since I had travelled all over East Africa, he wanted to get my impressions.
I started off by asking him if it was at all possible for me to interview Jomo Kenyatta. “That’s quite impossible,” he said, curtly, leaving no room for any persuasion. “That’s like Hamlet without the ghost,” I told him. Both he and I spoke frankly. I told him that there were no similarities between the transfer of power in India and the political muddle in East Africa.
“Ultimately, you will have to go and hand over power to Kenyatta. Will the transfer of power be peaceful or will it be bloody, like it was in Indonesia?” I asked him. He said that it was too early to be thinking about that, but the British had a genius for muddling through and the winds of change were blowing. He corrected himself: “Perhaps, not winds, but a breeze.” And we went back and forth.
I didn’t have the political background and all I could call upon was the rhetoric and cliches of anti-colonialism. I asked him what would be the fate of the Asians in East Africa. “That will depend on the Asians,” he said, “they will have to decide where they wanted to live.” I couldn’t help feeling that the Asians did not figure in any future equation though I didn’t tell him so. It was a long interview and it had turned evening and the sun was going down and the sky was turning pink and orange as I left. I thanked Sir Evelyn and he wished me luck. The British certainly had the talent for picking the right man for the right job.
THE time had come to start packing our bags. We had been guests, not only as a team, but we had lived as individuals with families. It was not important how we perceived our hosts, it was how the hosts perceived the quality of their guests that mattered. Something in the mood of Oscar Wilde who said of Frank Harris that he was invited to all the great houses of London — once. I think we would have been invited again.
Although playing cricket and travelling as a team was not new to the members of the Pakistan Cricket Writers Club, the experience of undertaking a tour of East Africa was a novel one, as East Africa was off the beaten track of international cricket.
That was one count against the tour being successful. The other was that the Pakistan Cricket Writers Club really had no roots and there was nothing to fall back on by way of traditions. Nor were any ‘sanctions’ available to keep wandering players in line. The Club had neither the pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity, something that also could be said of a mule. Could such a group hold together? Or would we splinter into pieces of temperaments and idiosyncrasies, and disgrace not only ourselves, but our hosts. We were very much on a scout’s honour.
These fears were laid to rest by the number of farewell receptions given to the team, the warmth of feelings expressed in the speeches, overlooking the cliches and corn. We were all a little sad that the tour had come to an end, and the real test of its success lay in the fact that even more people came to see us off at the airport than had received us.
JOE jaffer was not returning with us. He was going to London and he seemed particularly distraught. As he embraced each one of us and tried hard to hide his feelings, tears welled up in his eyes until one of us reminded him that we would be seeing him in a couple of weeks. Joe jaffer had been one of the most popular members of the team and had become my room-mate. Each morning, he would yell out to me that his back was hurting and would I tell Kardar that he wouldn’t be able to play. On the morning after we had played the last match, as usual, Joe Jaffer yelled out that he had a back ache. I yelled back the tour was over. He came bouncing into my room, all smiles and wanted to know what the plans were for the day.
Whatever we called ourselves, or whatever were our credentials, we were the first international team to undertake a full tour of East Africa. It was pointed out to us, not only by our immediate hosts, but by others, including some Britishers, that we had been able to do what no other country had been able to do, including England. We had put East Africa on the cricket map. But, we had failed in one critical respect. We had failed to rouse any interest in cricket among the Africans. Leave alone being allowed to play cricket, he was not even allowed to watch it. Perhaps, the British realized that it had been a mistake to have encouraged the natives in India to take up cricket. Now the natives were good enough to beat them at it!
One more match remained to be played and that was in Aden. It was not on the original itinerary, but the success of the tour put an idea in the minds of the local organizers in Aden, who were able to persuade us to play a two-day match on our way back. We would play against a team made up of players from a Royal Air Force contingent that had been stationed there. The British always took their cricket with them, wherever they went. It was a way of re-enforcing their Britishness. The match had received a lot of publicity and the pre-match build-up guaranteed that once again we were expected to take the match seriously.
We were told that we could expect a large crowd. That is to say, by Aden’s standards. We were playing soon after the disastrous Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, what was euphemistically called ‘the Suez Crisis’. Feelings against Pakistan were running high in the Arab community for what they considered (rightly) Pakistan’s duplicity. Who can forget what Suhrawardy had said at that time — “zero plus zero equals zero”. Pakistan was a toady of the West. We were told that there might be some demonstrations against the team. These did not materialize and we felt nothing of the supposed resentment. But then, we stayed away from the Arab quarters.
WE landed at Aden, late in the evening, by the end of the day and before the start of the night, that brief period when a clear blue sky is turned into a dazzling, golden sunset and there are wisps of almond blossom and candy pink clouds. As the door of the aircraft opened, we were greeted by a blast of burning, baking air, as if we had walked into a furnace-room. The hot air hit us and we did our calculations. If it was going to be sweltering at that time in the evening, what would it be like during the day, fielding at long-off or long-on or quarantined at third man, the position where I would be kept.
If ever a case could be made for heat stopping play, this was the time to make it. Failing that one could volunteer to score or report sick. We had been put up in Aden’s best hotel. It even had a night club and a floor show and a rather tired and bored looking female singer and not all the make-up she had plastered on her face could conceal that her best days were behind her. She spoke French and very little English.
THE water in the taps was either hot or boiling hot, depending on whether one had the cold or hot water tap on. There was a tenuous family connection. Long before I had been born, my father had been posted in Aden though neither he nor my mother ever mentioned it with an enthusiasm. The only redeeming feature for some of the players was that the shopping was cheap. I have very little recollection of the city and did not venture out. Some from the RAF turned up and invited us to the mess, but we politely declined on the grounds that before an important match, we preferred to turn in early, but I think we were all a little tired. It had been a hectic tour and we were now getting a little impatient to get back home. For me, there had been China and now East Africa. Home was beginning to feel like a foreign country.
