We had been encouraged by the Lord’s Test match, though the encouragement was tempered with the knowledge that Pakistan did not have the bowling to get England out twice. Still, our spirits were up as we journeyed north to Leeds to play Yorkshire at Headingly.
Yorkshire took its cricket seriously and played it hard. Headingly was the least attractive cricket ground in England, it had the untidiness of a building-site under construction and around it were terraced houses, rows and rows of them and there were no trees to speak of. The radio commentator had little to work with in terms of scene-scenery.
J. Naomal, the former India Test player and Sind’s most famous cricket son had once accused me, “scene-scenery give, finer, finer points, no give.” Scene-scenery had stuck in my mind. Headingly was a working-man’s cricket ground, duffel coats and scarves and cloth caps, no pretty girls in summer frocks or pin-stripe suits and bowler-hats. Yet it was a knowledgeable cricket crowd and did not suffer cricket-fools gladly, a bit of sloppy fielding brought hoots of derision.
The commentary-box was located at the back of a rugby stadium, a small cubicle. The press-box too was there or thereabouts. Yorkshire did not mess about with its team selection and had picked its strongest side, which included Fred Truman, Brian Close, Ray llingworth and a young batsman called Geof Boycott who wore glasses and walked, not quite with a swagger but with a certainty of one who knows his destination, shared with Hanif Mohammad a huge appetite for runs, both a gourmet and gourmand.
Just to show that Yorkshire showed no mercy to its guests, even if they had come from a far-off land, across mountains and deserts and plains, over oceans and seas, Boycott and Phil Sharpe put on 210 for the first wicket and declared at 414 for 3. Boycott making 128 and Sharpe 197 not out. Why declare when Sharpe was only 3 short of a double hundred? That’s the way that Yorkshire played its cricket. Pakistan managed only 150 and followed-on but held out for a draw.
From Leeds, we travelled to Swansea in Wales to play against Glamorgan and the BCC told me that I would have to do some television commentary as well. I had had a great time the last time I had visited Swansea, which had been in 1962. It is stupid to stereotype people but I liked the Welsh, there was something of a disadvantaged minority about them, a certain exclusivity that made them proud of their language and they spoke in a sing-song voice. They were also a hospitable people and they thought nothing about inviting you to their homes, something that English were loath to do.
I remember the Glamorgan match for a special reason. On the morning of the third day of the match, I came down for breakfast and Majid Khan waved to me and I joined him. Majid tended to be reserved and there was none of the hail fellow-well met heartiness about him. Majid was well into his bowl of corn-flakes washing it with his third or fourth glass of milk. To me he was MJ and not ‘Bokoo’ as his team-mates called him and I was Mr Kureishi, as I have remained to this day, and to Imran Khan as well and indeed to Farooq Mazhar, despite the many names I had for him including Field-Marshal.
Majid asked me whether I would be doing the commentary that morning and I told him that’s the reason why I was on my way to St. Helen’s ground. He then said something that was uncharacteristic. “You are going to see the fastest century of the season,” he made it sound matter of factly. “I’ll mention it when you come in to bat,” I told him. And I did and Wilf Wooler who was doing the commentary with me looked at me sharply. He was a double international, having played both cricket and rugby at that level. He had been a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp which accounted, perhaps, for his stern bearing and lack of sociability or bonhomie. But he was a much respected man. After a few false starts of contrived courtesy, we reached a sort of thaw. We didn’t break bread but drank many a cup of coffee.
Majid Khan had made his debut for Pakistan as a medium-fast bowler, no doubt wanting to emulate his distinguished father Dr Jehangir Khan who had been my friend, by inheritance, as it were. My eldest brother Nasir and he had both played for the Indian Gymkhana at Osterley in Surrey. I saw no future for Majid as a medium-fast bowler.
PIA had teamed up with Pakistan Eaglets Society and sent a team, PIA-Eaglets on a tour of England. As best as I can remember Mian Saeed was the manager and Zulfikar Ahmed (Gulla) was assistant manager. Zulfikar had been a more than useful off-spinner but he had endeared himself to us as a raconteur. He had an endless store of Sardarji jokes and he always greeted me by telling me one. Majid was a member of the PIA-Eaglets team and I recall Zulfikar telling me that Peter May had come to watch one of the matches, seen Majid bat and had asked why such a good batsman was batting so low down in the batting order.
Majid had come down the steps of the St. Helen’s pavilion, capless, his shirt-sleeves buttoned at the wrist. It was a sunny day made fresh by a gentle sea-breeze. I was on the air at the time and I reminded listeners of the promise made to me at breakfast that morning. Majid was not muscular but he hit the ball very hard, pure timing and he was into his shot fractionally quicker than others. It may have been an optical illusion but his reflexes appeared sharper. By no stretch of imagination could he have been described as a slogger nor did he appear to be in some undue hurry, but the score-board ticked over rapidly. He may have had some prescience about his future with Glamorgan for he appeared to be showcasing his talent.
I have yet to see such a torrid innings, such a display of batting fireworks. His batting partner was Saeed Ahmed, no slouch when it came to playing shots but Saeed remained in the shadows as Majid, both the majestic and the mighty, played the innings of the 1967 England summer and many more summers to come. He hit 13 sixes, some very long ones. What if one of them landed in the Swansea Bay? Would the records say that the ball had been “lost at sea”? How does one handle such an innings as a commentator? Obviously, with animation but then as one six follows another, one gets to repeat oneself and it begins to sound like a stuck gramophone needle.
Majid made 147 not out. The crowd was caught in two minds. It wanted Pakistan to declare but it wanted more of Majid. A season or two later, Gary Sobers hit six consecutive sixes on the same ground and against the same luckless opponents. Glamorgan was getting famous for the wrong reasons.
One remembers an innings for various reasons. I considered Vivian Richards as being awesome and Dennis Compton as being impertinent bordering on insubordination and Boycott as bureaucratic and Gary Sobers as arrogant with his shirt collar turned up. Majid’s innings I would describe as one when the adjectives run out. In the years to come, I would see Majid make many runs, play better innings than the one against Glamorgan. But none that gave me greater joy. What an extraordinary breakfast it had been, a bowl of corn flakes as a crystal ball.
We moved to Nottingham for the second Test match. Nottingham was Robin Hood country, of Sherwood Forest and the pub-song described it as a city “Where the girls are so pretty.” I liked Trent Bridge as a Test venue. The commentary position was just above the sight-screen at the pavilion end, close enough to smell the freshly cut grass of the outfield.
But, as always, one kept an eye out for the weather which had been forecast as chances of scattered showers. Used to the monsoon rain in Bombay where I had played cricket as a school and college boy, a scattered shower meant nothing. Either it rained or it did not. A scattered shower was a neither here nor there. It was like making polite conversation about the weather. Still, we kept our fingers crossed. We were doing a lot of that on this tour, crossing and uncrossing fingers.
Niaz Ahmed, a medium-pace bowler whose domicile was East Pakistan would be making a Test debut. That was the nearest that an East Pakistani came to playing for Pakistan. For England, a young lad called Knott would be making a debut, as a wicket-keeper. Thus on view would be two young wicket-keepers, Wasim Bari and Allan Knott, both would become wicket-keeping legends and the best of friends in the bargain, a friendship based on mutual respect so that they scratched each other’s back, one saying that the other was the best.
As my father would have said: “You call me Haji and I’ll call you Haji.”
