NUR KHAN is a sports person and cricket is only one of the games that he follows. He does not get too passionate as he did about hockey and squash. He is a man of strong, clear-cut views on most matters, a closed mind but one who leaves a window open. That was his management style, an impatient man who was result-oriented, a competitive man because he sought the best, brooked no nonsense. But behind the tough guy exterior was a compassionate man and one who was embarrassed when he was caught in an act of kindness.
A former Test cricketer, now wrinkled with age came to see me and wanted a job in PIA. I told him that he was already passed retirement age. He looked to be in despair and he gave me a sob story including informing me that he had come by bus. I felt awful since tears were rolling down his cheeks. I went to see Nur Khan. Nur Khan read me the riot act. It was the job of the cricket board to look after its players. I told him that while I agreed, meanwhile I had a very distressed old man in my office. I suggested that we could hire him as a coach of the PIA team.
“Bloody nonsense,” he said and read me a further clause of the riot act. And then like a storm that had spent its fury, he asked me what sort of salary did he have in mind. I mentioned a modest sum. “Hire him and ask the accounts department to pay him a year’s salary in advance,” he said and he shook his head and called me a “bloody fool.” The impulse of compassion had gone. I am pretty certain that Nur Khan has no recollection of this but for me it defined the man.
PIA’s sports department was not something pre-planned and not certainly its cricket team. Nur Khan almost gave the impression that he considered cricket as a waste of time. In 1960-61, Pakistan toured India and the first Test match was at Mumbai at the Brabourne Stadium. I was doing the commentary and the commentary position was high atop the Tata Pavilion, the main clubhouse; so high in fact that one felt that one needed an oxygen mask. They were a lot of stairs one had to climb to reach it. I got a message that Nur Khan had arrived and was at the ground watching the match, indeed watching Hanif Mohammad and Saeed Ahmed involved in a scintillating partnership. I went down during the lunch interval to meet him. I think he fudged up some story that he had some work in Mumbai and had just dropped in to see the match.
“What does Hanif do for a living?” he asked. I told him that I thought he worked for the PWD, courtesy Kafiluddin Ahmed, a wonderful man who did more for cricket than any one else I can think of and about whom I will write separately when I get down to persons like Justice Cornileus and I.A. Khan. Nur Khan asked me to find out whether Hanif Mohammad was interested in working for PIA. I spoke to Hanif who said that a house went with his job. To cut a long story short, Hanif was hired.
When I returned to Karachi, the lovable Mir Mohammad Hussain was the PIA sports officer and Mir Saab had his own style of making a point. “We’ve hired Hanif. I’ll need ten more players to make up a team,” he pointed out. “Start looking for players,” I told him and I would get Nur Khan’s approval. I never got a formal approval but merely a perfunctory “do what you like”. At the same time he told me that I was not to waste my time on cricket and get on with the job for which I was hired. That’s how PIA became a power-house in cricket. But Nur Khan laid out the general philosophy: sportsmen could play as much as they wanted but they should also work so that they could be absorbed in the regular cadre.
There is no other organization in the world that has done more for sports than PIA. And the entire credit for this goes to Nur Khan. Publicity for the airline was farthest from his mind. He was a genuine sports lover and he considered our sportsmen as a national trust and he was in a position to help them. “A sportsman should be able to concentrate on his sport and not have to worry about from where his next meal was coming.”
He kept himself abreast of all major sports events and unofficially it became my job to keep him posted. When Mohammad Ali, as Cassius Clay fought Sonny Liston, it was late at night according to our time and first thing in the morning he buzzed me on the inter-com and the red light started to blink. It rarely did unless there was a crisis situation. I had just got in. I answered it, somewhat anxiously. Nur Khan wanted to know the result. I told him I would find out. I telephoned APP and got the result. I got him on the inter-com and told him that Cassius Clay had won. “Are you sure? “ he asked, excited like a true boxing fan. “Come on over,” he ordered me. He was in a meeting but as far as he was concerned, the meeting was over and he discussed the fight with me. “Amazing,” he said, “but I knew he would win. He’s a true champion.” He was jubilant, as if he had landed the knock-out punch himself.
Nur Khan is best remembered in the sports field for the starring role he played in making Pakistan world hockey champions. He had the rare gift of picking the right man for the right job and he brought a remarkable energy to the post of the president of the Pakistan Hockey Federation; considering that he was also the head of PIA which was a full time job this was no mean feat. To both jobs he brought a total commitment. My own interest in hockey was marginal and I was kept out of the loop. Quick to realize that modern hockey would be played on Astroturf and this would put Pakistan at a serious disadvantage, he cut through red tape and provided Pakistan with its first Astroturf pitch.
He also became the president of the cricket board but I felt that he was somewhat out of depth. But for the record he was instrumental in making Imran Khan captain ahead of the claims of more senior players and he was the first one to raise the idea of ‘neutral’ umpires and the match-referee. Cricket is a game that is slow to respond to new ideas and he has had to forego the credit for these revolutionary changes.
Not hockey, nor cricket, though his contribution was considerable, he was the first to see the potential of squash and he turned his attention to it and for reasons I found baffling, he put me in charge. He built the PIA Squash Complex, at that time, the world’s most modern. He sent me to London to talk to the BBC to televise the game and the BBC felt that with the technology available at that time it was not possible. I spoke to Athar Waqar Azim of PTV and although he had never seen a game of squash, he was willing to give it a go. And what a great job he made of it. Jahangir Khan owes much to his own talent and to his father, Roshan Khan. But it was Nur Khan who spotted Jahangir Khan as a potential world champion. Had there been no Nur Khan, would there have been Jahangir Khan, the greatest squash player ever? One can’t say but the golden door was opened for him by Nur Khan.
I had my ups and downs with him when he was my boss in PIA. My respect for him as a professional has never wavered. But it is as a person, as a decent, caring human being that my affection for him has remained steady. One can always tell who are one’s well-wishers and who are the time-servers. I have been a well-wisher and now that he has retired, I can even claim to be his friend. Nur Khan will not disown this friendship.
NUR KHAN is a sports person and cricket is only one of the games that he follows. He does not get too passionate as he did about hockey and squash. He is a man of strong, clear-cut views on most matters, a closed mind but one who leaves a window open. That was his management style, an impatient man who was result-oriented, a competitive man because he sought the best, brooked no nonsense. But behind the tough guy exterior was a compassionate man and one who was embarrassed when he was caught in an act of kindness.
