THE Oval was “the other cricket ground” in London, across the river and over the Vauxhall Bridge. It was a working-man’s cricket ground, the cloth cap as against a bowler hat. Lord’s was Harrods, The Oval Marks & Spencers. To make a hundred at Lord’s on one is first appearance was a signal honour, to do the same at The Oval conferred no special distinction. Yet The Oval was the cricket ground that was seared in my cricket memory. I was all of 11-years old in 1938 when England had made 901 against Australia and Len Hutton had scored 364, passing Bradman’s 334 and became the record-holder of the highest score by an individual in a Test match. I even remember who England’s wicket-keeper was, Arthur Woods and I played against him in 1953 in Hastings when he had come with Jack Appleyard’s Charity XI. I had opened the innings and had hit the first ball for four. He had walked up to me and in that heavy Yorkshire accent had informed that the bowler I had dispatched for four was quicker than Fred (Truman) and it was best not to get his gander up. I do not remember the next ball but remember too well the middle stump cartwheeling and one of the bails being retrieved from the sight-screen. “I warned thee lad,” Woods had said.
I had first gone to The Oval in 1953 to watch the Australians play against Surrey in the company of Colonel Leslie Berry. He had worked in the Pakistan Ordnance Factory in Wah and like all Englishman had hated it while he was there and now was lonely for those happy days. There was Leslie, his wife Ina and a lovely daughter, Elaine but more importantly, he owned a Hillman-Minx and it was in his car that we had driven to London. We were lucky to have seen, probably, the best Over ever bowled in cricket, Ray Lindwall to Peter May. It would not have surprised me if Peter May had broken into tears. He played and missed every ball of the over and was left out of England’s team for the Test match.
The Oval too had been the ground where Pakistan had beaten England in 1954, had been ‘Fazalled’ and The Oval as a cricket ground had acquired a historical significance like Waterloo, except that the shove was on the other foot. The memory of that 1954 victory had been badly soiled when England had battered Pakistan in 1962 and Fazal had been taken to the cleaners by Ted Dexter. Still the 1954 win remained a land-mark in Pakistan’s cricket history.
Pakistan was one down in the series, all the good work of Lord’s had been undone at Trent Bridge. We were now into the third week of August, summer was starting to dissolve into autumn though the leaves on the trees were still green and there was something of a last hurrah, a final outburst of sunshine as I made my way to the ground, carrying my Olivetti typewriter and wearing my Burberry mackintosh. I had bought the mackintosh on an impulse. Some years earlier, A.J. Kardar and I had been walking in Haymarket in London’s west-end and we had passed the Burberry shop. A.J. had said to me that I should get one of the rain-coats. “You look like a bum in what you are wearing.” Burberry’s was strictly out of my financial league and A.J. had made it sound like a challenge. “Why not?” I had said and we had entered the shop and been given an once-over by the snooty sales-assistant and I bought the raincoat which came with a detachable lambswool lining. “There goes my week’s allowance,” I had said to no one in particular.
One entered Lord’s through the Grace Gates, named after W.G. Grace. At The Oval, one entered through the Hobbs’ Gates named after the legendary Jack Hobbs, the Surrey and England opening batsman. Highest in the list of cricket deities, I had made up, when I was a boy was Don Bradman. The second on the list was Jack Hobbs. “Pray God, that a professional should never captain England,” Lord Hawke had said and Jack Hobbs, though ultimately knighted, never captained England. He had been England’s most prolific run-getter. He was an opening batsman and Hobbs and Sutcliffe were as famous a pairing as scotch and soda. The commentary position was atop the main pavilion and from that position one could see some of London’s skyline including the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. One got a bird’s eye view of the cricket and the players looked like miniatures. Any higher we would have needed oxygen masks. There were not too many Pakistani supporters but the West Indians made up for that. The West Indian, as a matter of principle, cheered for England’s opponents. One-Day cricket was all but unknown at an international level and it was Test cricket that was at the highest peak, the cherished goal of cricket’s Hillarys and Tenzings.
Pakistan had not done much to be considered a feared opponent. The ground was far from full as Pakistan won the toss. Hanif who had been batting lower down decided to open the innings and Khalid Ibadulla’s services were no longer required and Mohammad Ilyas, having recovered from injury which had led to a long lay-off, came in to partner Hanif. Making a Test debut was Ghulam Abbas, a left-handed batsman who, one felt had got the short end of the stick on the tour. He didn’t get the encouragement he needed. He could have been a star. On his return from England, we had taken him in PIA and appropriately he had been posted in the Lost and Found department at Karachi airport. He had certainly been ‘lost’ during much of the tour and ‘found’ too late to play the final Test match. Before one had settled down properly in the commentary-box, taken off one’s jacket and loosened one’s tie, Hanif, Ilyas and Majid Khan had come and gone. Pakistan was 17 for 3 and the cooks hadn’t even started to prepare lunch for the players, still gossiping and taking a last drag on their Woodbine cigarettes before beginning to wash the vegetables. I had, by now, learnt to deal with disappointments. I had had enough practice. One couldn’t help feeling that this would be Hanif’s last tour of England and he had had three tours and had only one hundred to show for it. Still, he had a hundred against every team he had played. Saeed Ahmed and Mushtaq Mohammad had steadied the boat but there were no heroics and by close of play Pakistan had reached a paltry 214 for 9, not even enough to hope for the best. The next day, Pakistan added only two runs.
“When the last trumpet sounds,” Oscar Wilde had told his friend, “let’s pretend we did not hear it.” I was, by now, a past-master at ignoring the patronising, mock-sympathy I would receive from my colleagues in the commentary-box. England would be touring Australia that winter (Australia being down-under it would be summer) and the main interest was on that tour and who would be captain. Brian Close was England’s captain and had not done anything wrong. But Brian Close was inclined to be his own man and though not disrespectful of the Establishment, was not fawning enough. It didn’t help his cause that he was a Yorkshire professional. Brian Close had come to Pakistan with the ill-starred MCC A team that had roughed up Idris Beg, the Umpire, at Peshawar in 1956. He had played no part in the tomfoolery. Everyone in the commentary and press-box was preoccupied with selecting the team for Australia and Pakistan’s 216 went unnoticed and The Oval Test match had become a ritual that had to be observed, like taking off one’s hat or cap when entering a church.
England piled on the runs and it was that man Ken Barrington. Wally Grout, the Australian wicket-keeper had said about Ken Barrington that “he seemed to walk out to bat with a Union Jack trailing after him.” He made batting look like hard work but there was a “blood, tears, toil and sweat” quality to his batting. He was defiant, single-minded and focused and he gave me the impression that he had not been a professional cricketer, he would have been an accountant. Yet, by disposition, he was a cheerful man. It was his batting that was cheerless but very effective. He put on 141 for the third wicket in the company of Tom Graveney and 96 with Denis Amiss. He himself scored 142 until Wasim Bari caught him off the bowling of Salim Altaf. England was finally out for 440 and for good measure Alan Knott made 65 and Geoff Arnold 59. England’s lead was 226. Jude is the god of lost causes and Pakistan needed him, not to win the Test match but lose it with some dignity. Jude provided such a man and his name was Asif Iqbal. He was a lower order batsman and he opened the bowling, a young man who was the nephew of Ghulam Ahmed, one of India’s great off-spinner and this nephew had migrated from Hyderabad (Deccan) and had come to see me and I had got him a job in PIA and who did not known then, as he sat on the balcony of the Pakistan dressing-room, watching Pakistan’s second innings faltering, that he had a date with destiny. He would not wait for the world to come to him. He would go out and meet it and in one golden moment of cricket’s many golden moments, he would make it his own.
THE Oval was “the other cricket ground” in London, across the river and over the Vauxhall Bridge. It was a working-man’s cricket ground, the cloth cap as against a bowler hat. Lord’s was Harrods, The Oval Marks & Spencers. To make a hundred at Lord’s on one is first appearance was a signal honour, to do the same at The Oval conferred no special distinction. Yet The Oval was the cricket ground that was seared in my cricket memory. I was all of 11-years old in 1938 when England had made 901 against Australia and Len Hutton had scored 364, passing Bradman’s 334 and became the record-holder of the highest score by an individual in a Test match. I even remember who England’s wicket-keeper was, Arthur Woods and I played against him in 1953 in Hastings when he had come with Jack Appleyard’s Charity XI. I had opened the innings and had hit the first ball for four. He had walked up to me and in that heavy Yorkshire accent had informed that the bowler I had dispatched for four was quicker than Fred (Truman) and it was best not to get his gander up. I do not remember the next ball but remember too well the middle stump cartwheeling and one of the bails being retrieved from the sight-screen. “I warned thee lad,” Woods had said.
