At a minimum, one imagined that Ashby de la Rouche would be a small provincial town in France, or a garrison in one of the French colonies, Ivory Coast, for example. Actually, it was where the Pakistan team stayed for its match against Derbyshire which was played on a ground owned by a brewery in Burton-on-Trent. The 1962 tour would allow me to see most of England and to hear a bewildering number of accounts, almost foreign tongues as against the ‘pucca’ English I spoke without the parody of Peter Sellers’ “goodness, gracious me.” But more of that later.
The tour was well underway by the time I arrived in London, sometime in May, by which time the land should have been lit by summer. But it had been raining and there was a chill in the air, and I was reminded of Coleridge’s “summer had set in with its usual severity.” I had been met by Gaston de Chalus, our public relations consultant. He, too, should have been a French nobleman, but he was as English as fish and chips. He had brought some mail for me, all from the BBC, my contract and assignments and the cue-sheet of the first match that I would do, Pakistan versus Lancashire at Old Trafford.
The cue-sheet terrified me. It worked out the cricket commentary in minutes and seconds. This meant that I would have to work with a stopwatch. I wondered if the BBC would provide it or whether I would have to buy my own. Moreover, I would barely have time to unpack before re-packing to leave for Manchester. London had several railway stations, Victoria, Paddington, Waterloo, King’s Cross, Charring Cross, and one had to know exactly from which one the train left. I was familiar with Victoria. It was where the boat-train had arrived when I had first come to London from New York in 1951.
The British had a passion for building magnificent railway stations, as if they were monuments to the Industrial Revolution and in India, symbols of their presence. But Indian railway stations were great fun and they were like bazaars, hustle and bustle, filled with crowds, people, not all of them travellers, not even armed with the authority of platform tickets. The chattering sounded like quarrels, the chaos bordered on panic and through the colours of the past, one remembered them with a sad affection, like a black and white photograph that has turned sepia. The English railway stations lacked vibrancy, but were more efficient. They still managed an old charm and I would be taking a lot of trains on this tour.
The manager of the team was Brigadier ‘Gussie’ Hyder. I had not met him, but would do so to discover a warm and friendly man who was popular with the team. I discovered that his forte was polo and he had probably never seen a cricket match until this assignment. Pakistan had opened its tour, as was customary, against Worcestershire, famous for the Royal Worcester crockery and even more famous for Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce. The ground where the match was played had also become famous for the double centuries that Bradman had routinely scored. I had missed Pakistan’s match, but an opening match of a tour attracts a good deal of interest. It provides an opportunity to size up the tourists.
At that time, cricket’s main worry was ‘chucking’ as ‘dragging’ had been when Lindwall was on a rampage. Crawford White of The Express, who had been to Pakistan when a MCC ‘A’ team had toured in 1956, was present at Worcester and had confronted ‘Gussie’ Hyder. Crawford White had himself told me of the way the conversation had gone. “We are told that some of your bowlers are chuckers,” he had asked the manager. “What do you mean some, all my bowlers are chuckers,” the manager had replied. Crawford was perplexed. He didn’t know whether the manager was having him on. But ‘Gussie’ Hyder had no pretensions. He openly admitted that he knew nothing about cricket. “But then, it’s not my job to do so. It’s the players’ responsibility. My job is to manage the team and maintain discipline,” he told me. I admired his honesty. I would spend a lot of time with him on the tour.
I arrived in Manchester and it was raining as I made my way to Old Trafford, a ground I always associated with Neville Cardus, cricket’s Shakespeare. Neville Cardus was to prose what John Arlott was to cricket commentary, both artists who used words as Constable would paint landscapes in magical soft colours. I had read Cardus, not for cricket alone. I read him as literature. He was still around, occasionally writing on cricket, but now more on music, his other love. I never got to meet him. No other game could have produced a Neville Cardus. He honoured cricket and cricket honoured him. Both were meant for each other, a marriage, one could say, that was made in heaven.
It was bitterly cold and my teeth were chattering, and for the life of me I could not understand why the English called cricket ‘a summer game’. According to my cue-sheet, we would not be on the air till after the tea interval, but I went to the small cubicle that was the commentary-box. No one had arrived. I went to the Pakistan dressing-room and touched base with the team. The start had been delayed because the light was poor and the players, some wearing double sweaters, were engaged in conversation. They did not seem particularly happy and I suspected the tour had not been going well. They seemed pleased to see me. I was not a stranger to them. There would be plenty of time to share their grievances and their few moments of joy. The mood in the dressing-room at that time, matched the weather.
I had always taken cricket commentary in my stride and even when I had first sat before the microphone in Dhaka in 1955 to make my debut, I had betrayed no signs of nervousness. But I was a little tense, more so, since John Arlott would be doing the commentary with me. A further problem was that I had no idea of who did what in the Lancashire team, and I did not recognize any of the players. But John Arlott arrived and put me at ease immediately. He said that he had had the same problem when he had done his first match, against the touring Indians in 1946. “It generally works out,” he said. Luckily, Lancashire batted first and my job became easier. I was certainly not in awe of John Arlott, but was conscious of the fact that he was the world’s best and I would come out second-best compared to him. But I had my own distinct style and I was damned that I would change it. I would do it my way.
John was very focused when he was on the air. Nothing that happened on the field escaped him and the words with flow in an accent, a Hampshire burr, that was unmistakably John Arlott, as was his worn-out briefcase in which he brought his sandwiches and his bottle of wine. I waited my turn with some trepidation, but once he had handed over to me, all doubts and fears vanished. I was at that age when I believed in myself. At close of play, John said to me: “You are going to be alright.” He was not patronizing. “You are a natural.” This was high praise from the maestro and it made me feel good. I knew that in John Arlott I had a friend, and as the tour progressed, so did my friendship with him.
But a dark cloud had been hanging over the tour. The ‘chucking’ controversy loomed and the arrangement had been that the umpires would take no action until the first test match, but would report bowlers whose actions were suspect. Haseeb had bowled magnificently in Pakistan’s first match against Worcestershire and had taken five wickets in the first innings. The fear was that he would be targeted. Those who believed that England does not take advantage of ‘home advantage’ live in a fool’s paradise. And the worst came into being.
Haseeb’s cricket career had come to a halt through the machinations of the England cricket board aided by a weak-kneed team management and the Pakistan cricket board who did not even register a protest. The decision was just accepted. Haseeb had toured the West Indies and India, and no umpire had raised any kind of objection to his bowling action. The Pakistan team had been seriously weakened. He would have been our trump card. I got a letter from Kardar and he was furious. He felt that the team should have threatened to return home. But it seemed pointless writing to me. I spoke to ‘Gussie’ Hyder who seemed not to understand what the fuss was all about. The senior players in the team, Imtiaz Ahmed, Hanif Mohammad, Mahmood Hussain, Alimuddin seemed upset, but were helpless. A decision had been handed down and there was no appeal.
Conspiracy is too strong a word but there had been a pre-judgment and I had no doubt that words had been whispered in the ears of the umpires, the same umpires who had seen nothing wrong in the bowling action of Tony Lock. I did not subscribe to the widely-held view that English umpires, like Caesar’s wife, were above reproach.
Though not a stranger to England, this was my first tour of England with a cricket team and though it had started well for me personally, it would turn out to be an unhappy tour, some of the unhappiness our own doing but some of it, thrust upon us. This was the first blow.
