Fifty years ago, Pakistan traversed the seas for a historic win at Lords
Southampton ahoy! Act one of the longest journey had thus come to an end. Playing the game and playing to win was to follow. England waited to wallop the “rabbits” and walk off with the Test series, the first with Pakistan. But the Oval can wait...
Sailing the same boat that carried the cricket team on a day in April, 50 years ago, was a voyage of discovery (and this is no cliche). They say travel is the best judge of character, so the 20-day odyssey on the high seas presented a child not yet seven with a treasure island all to herself, inhabited with men marked for greatness in the months ahead.
As the SS Batory readied to leave Karachi harbour, the band roared a martial tune signalling the streamers dancing in the wind to wild abandon; it was a hedonistic send-off for the green-blazer “babes of cricket” as the British media had baptized the Pakistan team. But treated with kid gloves were the thousand arms and hands that went up in the air to wish goodbye and Godspeed from the pier below packed with ecstatic fans. Rose petals and garlands of motia floated a heady scent while we drifted slowly away. Prayers for victory levitated in the distant sea air.
Choppy waters soon racked the ocean-liner dipping its way into the Arabian Sea, sending us all pronto to our cabins, sick to the stomach. The well-appointed dining lounges with piped music and gourmet delights (Bombay curry and Peking duck) felt scorned for the next four days. The lonely deck chairs and the sprightly open-air bar became the ‘ghosts only’ hangout. Hazarding beyond the cabin proved too risky for every puking passenger jerked around with the tossing of the ship and tossing without a break.
“A white man’s game”, said C.L.R. James, the West Indian thinker who gave colour to cricket in his brilliant expose on British colonialism and the race card. The “rabbits”, a name tagged to our team, were therefore restless to pick up the bat and ball and practice their shots on the deck away from prying passengers before facing the fast and the furious “white man” Frank Tyson and Dennis Compton. The manager would often bowl or bat with the team and watching him would be his three kids.
The cricket team was culled with assiduous planning by the highest level of government, starting with the selection of the manager, hand-picked by Mian Aminuddin, the Punjab governor. He chose Lahore, triggering a fireside family discussion in our home. It was unthinkable for the head of the household to leave his wife and three small kids for full six months. The lady of the house put her foot down and father had no choice but to tag the whole family with him on the tour of England in the summer of 1954. The trip cost us a mini-fortune as accompanying family members footed the bill themselves, something so foreign today.
Prime Minister Nazimuddin gave his full blessing to the team, appointing Masood Salahuddin, a serving member of the Pakistan Railways, as the assistant manager. He and the manager worked in tandem. Both men were selected on merit, both had played first-class cricket and both were good administrators. It was after all not a freebie where non-cricketers would do as manager and assistant manager — sadly something that later came into play.
“Skipper” A.H. Kardar was the obvious choice for captain of the team — young and dashing but egregiously egotistical (maybe because he was after all an Oxford blue). The vice-captain, Fazal Mahmood, was a lady killer — at least that’s what appeared to us three, me and my two older brothers, fascinated by his flamboyance, as we sat down to dinner every night, followed by an evening of music and dancing.
The bilori eyes (can’t find the apt translation) and the kiss curl carelessly thrown on the forehead, the six-foot hulk, sporting always an open collar and shirt, sleeves artlessly rolled up to show muscle and grit, Fazal, as far as I can remember, was always the man of the match — be it women, wine or cricket.
He was also a good man, a great sport, but above all an outstanding leader, who cared for the team spirit and respected his colleagues. At a fancy dress on board the ship, Fazal dolled up as a bride, with two oranges as his props that promptly slipped out, sending peals of laughter all around.
Imtiaz, the wicket-keeper, kept good cheer and clean company along with M.Z. Ghazali, Khan Mohammad and Shuja. Handsome Waqar Hassan and Khalid Hassan were too young to make any waves — they were always on the fringes. Hanif and Wazir, the two unsmiling brothers, were pious and I remember the latter often bent in sajda under an open sky as the ship pierced its way through the billowy waves out on the wide open seas.
Lithe Mahmud Hussain always walked with a very sexy gait, gyrating his hips ‘la Monroe, so no surprise here, if he was nicknamed “Marilyn Monroe”!
Maqsood Ahmed, so smart with back-slapping folksiness, was called “Merry Max” — a name he lived up to during the series.
Aden, the British port, was our first stop and we got down. The “white men” were running around in Bermuda shorts, it was so hot. And when our ship pussyfooted through the Suez Canal, we saw British soldiers on both sides of the canal — it was so narrow that we could have reached out to shake hands with the men on either side. On board the Batory was Punjab’s feudal lord Khizar Hayat Tiwana. And guess what? He was travelling with a horde of servants, serving this great politico, hand and foot (no pun intended).
Why did we travel by sea? It was cheaper to sail than to fly, I am now told by my eldest brother, who helped fill in the missing gaps for this story. I remember the old Polish steward, assigned to our table, i.e., the Pakistani team. Imagine his delight (and ours) when we took the same Polish ship: S.S. Batory, six months later, to return home to Pakistan.
It was a cold and dreary April day when we anchored at Southampton. England had arrived. We headed for London and checked in at Berner’s Hotel on Oxford Street. It was quite a snooty place and the waiters didn’t like us asking for a second helping of corn-flakes at breakfast. You won’t believe it, but food rationing was still in vogue. Eggs were ear-marked — one per head. No more.
I remember war-ravaged London like the back of my palm. The sound of drilling is still fresh in my mind. There were burnt down blocks from the German blitzkrieg and rebuilding was in full view. London looked strange, but the eclectic stores across our hotel strummed with life despite the quiet drizzle and the fog we had come to accept.
Kardar, despite his brilliance, was a fractious figure. The manager often heard senior players grouse against their captain for abusing them. The “Skipper” suffered from an “angular personality” as foreign secretary Shaharyar Khan (now fully in the game), 40 years later, put it when the former, our envoy to Berne, messed up at Davos.
Modelling himself on the lines of his “Skipper”, Merry Max, yup, you guessed it, was the next to sign the marriage vows with a “groupie” back in 1954. Whatever their mortal failings, still, these two men are iconic and deserve the highest praise.
Now, here’s another inside, that is truly unbelievable but alas true: our curmudgeon high commissioner to England, M.A.H. Isphani, disdained the “rabbits”, ribbing them for dropping catches saying they had “butter fingers”. He preferred rooting for his host country.
Finally, the Oval — Kardar disliked Wazir Mohammad, but the only batsman unfazed by Tyson was this squat silent chap. Overruling the “Skipper”, the manager and other members of the tour selection committee included Wazir in the XI who batted best — 42 runs while Fazal Mahmood, Khan Mohammad and Mahmud Hussain bowled us to victory.
On September 10, with tears of happiness, we sailed for the green, green grass of home, the rest as they say, is history.
Fifty years ago, Pakistan traversed the seas for a historic win at Lords 
