DISTANCES are relative. For me, Karachi to Peshawar was a long-haul by train. London to Cardiff should have seemed a stone’s throw away. Yet, it took several hours and I sat in the compartment, gazing at the countryside that hurried away. As the train approached Cardiff, the small railway stations where it stopped began to have names that sounded exotic and were, for the most part, unpronounceable. Wales was a part of Britain but the Welsh were not really British. I would have said that they were closer to the Irish, warm and friendly, though not as volatile. The Welsh were British, but they were also Welsh and they spoke in a sing-song voice, and it reminded me of the way that Anglo-Indians used to speak English, the more they wanted to sound British, the less they seemed British.
But for all the pride that the Welsh felt in being Welsh, there was nothing that could be done about the weather that was the same as the rest of the country. It was raining as I reached Cardiff in the afternoon. The sky was painted a dull gray and a weak, watery sun struggled to break free and managed only to spread gloom rather than light.
I was not doing the commentary, but stuck around to watch Pakistan lose yet another county match, Glamorgan winning by 7 wickets in a photo-finish, nine minutes to spare. Exciting, but a desultory result. Hanif got a hundred.
The next stop was Taunton in Somerset and I had a special reason to look forward to going there. My brother, Asif (Achoo), was teaching in a school there. He had, as they say, a chequered career. He had left Poona for England in 1938, and had enrolled in the London School of Economics. Harod Laski had been one of his professors. When war broke out and London started to get bombed, LSE was evacuated to Cambridge and he missed the blitz. After he graduated, he did what other young men do. He looked for a job and joined the Burma Oil Company, prompting my mother to observe the famous Urdu saying that roughly translated was that he had studied Persian and went to sell oil.
He was posted to Chittagong and to hear him tell it, he had his share of hell. He was the first Pakistani covenanted officer in BOC and all his colleagues were British. Later, Kardar would join BOC. Clearly, he was unsuited to be a box-walla and the first chance he got, he resigned and joined the ranks of the unemployed. He joined Middle Temple and did his bar from there. He was now both an economist and a barrister, but he followed his heart and went into teaching and found himself in Taunton where, he told me, he was happy.
He was waiting for me at the hotel when I arrived. No man is a hero to his valet. In my family, we love each other for who we are, and not for what we may have become. Achoo was quite unimpressed with my cricket commentary prowess, nor was he much impressed with performance of the Pakistan cricket team. He declined to come and watch the team play, but accepted the invitation that John Arlott had extended to me to join in a traditional dinner at one of the local pubs. The pub had a miniature bowling alley and the high point of the evening was a competition between ‘pairs’ and Achoo and I paired together. John Arlott was master of ceremonies, and he was in top form. Achoo and I failed to get on the score-board, and John announced this mock sorrow. It was a wonderful evening and I met many of the Somerset players, including Bill Alley, the Australian who would go on to become a test umpire.
If losing to Glamorgan was bad, we hit an all-time low against Somerset, the match was over one hour after lunch on the second day, with Pakistan losing by an innings and 86 runs. It was getting embarrassing. Batting first on a green top after winning the toss, Pakistan could not even reach three figures, being bowled out for 99 by a bowling attack that did not include a single England bowler. Somerset made 331 with Pakistan managing 146 in the second innings, Saeed Ahmed making 71.1t was not just clueless batting. The team looked disinterested. My brother Achoo offered no comments when he came to say farewell. I had seen many highs and lows of Pakistan cricket, but this was the pits.
The next match was against Yorkshire at Bradford. Yorkshire played cricket seriously and fielded its full team which included Geoff Boycott, not then a test player, just an awkward looking chip of a lad who wore spectacles. And there was Brian Bolus, Phil Sharpe, Ray Illingworth and most of all, Freddie Trueman. Bradford was not then the “Little Pakistan” it would become in the years to come. There were parts of Yorkshire that were exquisitely lovely and parts that were reminders of the coal mines. Yorkshire was a part of England, but to hear Yorkshiremen tell it, it was the real England and it brought this pride to its cricket.
It was heavily overcast and the clouds were so low that one felt one could touch them. There was rain about. The match started on time but in poor light. Mahmood Hussain was getting prodigious swing. The former England fast bowler, Bill Bowes, was covering the match for a Yorkshire evening paper and in what was meant to be a compliment, wrote that Mahmood Hussain swung the ball so much that at times, he was unable to control it. Mahmood Hussain missed the point and saw it as criticism. I was in the press-box and he came charging in and asked me in a most menacing tone: “Who is this Bill Bowes and how many test matches has he played?” I told him who Bill Bowes was and offered to introduce him to him. “Don’t forget to tell him that you are a foreign-trained rubber technologist and father of two,” I teased him.
Later, when he came in to bat, he had driven Trueman through the covers for four and appeared to have some words with him. I asked Mahmood Hussain what had been said. He told me that he saw Trueman scowling and went down the wicket and apologized to him. He was convinced that the next ball would be a bouncer and the apology was evasive action in advance.
Yorkshire made 246 with Phil Sharpe making 136. Mahmood Hussain relished the bowling conditions and took 5 for 57. Pakistan batted better than it had in Taunton and made 285, with Hanif making 42. But far more significant was Nasimul Ghani’s batting who made 63, the first sign that he was emerging as an all-rounder. Yorkshire managed only 137 in the second innings and Mahmood Hussain took 6 for 52, giving him a match haul of 11 wickets. The final day started 100 minutes late and the match was drawn. This was the last match before the second Test match at Lords. Pakistan was already one down in the series and seemed ill-prepared for the Lords test match.
On one of my visits to Rome, I had gone to the Vatican City and when I entered St. Peter’s, I said to myself that this was the way I had felt when I had gone to Lords for the first time. There was a sense of respect bordering on reverence and there was an aura about Lords that is hard to describe. Perhaps, I was traditionalist and valued the orthodoxy that Lords represented or, perhaps, I was a snob at heart and felt comfortable with the dress-code it demanded. Once I had entered the Grace Gates, gone past the geriatric official who had wished me “Mornin’” after he was satisfied that I was a valid ticket holder, one was soon over the spell that Lords casts over the devotees of cricket.
A test match at Lords is a social event, but unlike other sporting social events such as Ascot or the Henley Regatta or even Wimbledon, it does not set a fashion. This is because Lords was a bastion of male chauvinism. Ladies were not allowed in the main pavilion. Normally, I wore a blazer and slacks when I went to cricket matches in England. But for Lords, I wore a suit. As a cricket ground, Lords isn’t very much. It was not in a beautiful setting, as the Lahore Gymkhana ground had been in the Bagh-i-Jinnah with its sturdy oaks and tall poplars. It was located at St John’s Wood, but there was no wood, not even any trees that fringed it. As one walked out of the tube station, Lords was a few hundred yards down and one suddenly came upon it. No grand entrance, no warning that one had reached cricket’s most famous secular temple. But much as Lahoris may say “Lahore is Lahore”, Lords was Lords. Was one expected to tread softly? Cover one’s head?
I had lived in England and visited London frequently, but this would be the first test match that I would be watching at Lords. It was only right that the sun should have been shining and I made my way to commentary-box, which was atop Warner Stand as was the press-box. From the pavilion end, it would have been where extra-cover would be. I looked out at the lush green outfield and it was hard to tell where the wicket was. “The side winning the toss will field first,” was the conventional wisdom. That’s what I love about a cricket match, the crystal-gazing that goes on as the two captains, in their blazers, go out to toss. The ground was filling up and the chatter has muted. This was Lords. That was buzz enough.
DISTANCES are relative. For me, Karachi to Peshawar was a long-haul by train. London to Cardiff should have seemed a stone’s throw away. Yet, it took several hours and I sat in the compartment, gazing at the countryside that hurried away. As the train approached Cardiff, the small railway stations where it stopped began to have names that sounded exotic and were, for the most part, unpronounceable. Wales was a part of Britain but the Welsh were not really British. I would have said that they were closer to the Irish, warm and friendly, though not as volatile. The Welsh were British, but they were also Welsh and they spoke in a sing-song voice, and it reminded me of the way that Anglo-Indians used to speak English, the more they wanted to sound British, the less they seemed British.
