RADIO listeners always knew when Imtiaz Ahmed was batting for there was a lift in my voice. One never knew what would happen and he could be out first ball charging down the wicket or he could hook the first ball for six. He seemed to have no respect for the bowlers. This would suggest that he was a slam-bang batsman. Not so.
He was one of the best batsmen that Pakistan has produced. He was not in the classical mould and would have driven the gentlemen in the Long Room at Lord’s crazy. But he had a wonderful eye and sharp reflexes and he was a simple man who believed that a long hop was a long hop, even if the bowler was Fred Truman.
I had first seen him play when the Punjab University played Bombay University at the Brabourne Stadium. I remember him as a somewhat ungainly batsman with a two-eyed stance, which was frowned upon by cricket’s purists. The next I heard of him was when he scored a century against a visiting Australia Services XI at Lahore and the next that he had scored a triple century against a Commonwealth that had included the leg-spinner McCool. Imtiaz later told me that he was not able to pick McCool’s googly and yet he made a triple century.
I had left for the United States for higher studies and considered cricket a closed chapter. But it is not so easy to dispose what is bred in the bones and when I finally returned, there was a second coming for me and I became a cricket commentator and it was in that capacity that I got to know Imtiaz Ahmed as a person.
Appearances can be deceptive. He was almost a shy man who shunned the limelight and he did not strut about like a peacock. He was one of the stars of the team but one wouldn’t know it. Yet a strange transformation came about him when he was batting. He became tiger.
What prevented him from becoming a batting genius was his lack of consistency and I think he saw cricket as a game to be enjoyed rather than some serious business that required agonizing concentration. But when the chips were down, Imtiaz could turn a match on its head. In 1955 when India was touring Pakistan, we found ourselves in dire straits in the Peshawar Test. The Indian spinners were weaving their magic spell. Something heroic was needed to break the spell. I remember going to the Pakistan dressing room and a pall of gloom hung over it. There was no conversation, only the fixity of a pensive glare. Imtiaz and Maqsood were padded up and my efforts to offer them some encouragement were all but snubbed. Kardar too looked visibly nervous and was not in the best of humour.
Imtiaz and Maqsood put on a useful partnership and then Maqsood was out. It was a signal to Imtiaz to cut loose and he belted the Indian bowling to all parts of the Services Club ground. I would describe it as an “innings of controlled rage.” He made 69 but it was enough to put Pakistan over the top and the match was saved. It was the best innings I saw him play though he got a double century against New Zealand at Lahore and a century against India at Madras in 1961. He narrowly missed a century against England at the Oval in 1962. He was out in the nineties to a superb catch at the deep square-leg boundary.
Imtiaz never got to play One-Day cricket. He would have been a sensation. I think his batting suffered because he was the team’s wicket-keeper and though he did a good enough job, he was not a specialist keeper. But his mannerism was useful to the commentators. When he had a batsman caught behind, he would fling the ball in the air. When he didn’t we knew there had been no nick even though the umpire may have given the batsman out!
He should have followed Fazal Mahmood as Pakistan’s captain but Javed Burki got the job instead. Imtiaz did get his turn but he was too much of a good guy to be a strong captain.
Imtiaz has been one of the pioneers of Pakistan cricket, the lad from Bhatti Gate who had come to the ground for his first international match on a bicycle and because he played his cricket before the present gold rush, he never got the rewards he richly deserved. Imtiaz at the wicket may not have been a thing of beauty but it was a joy forever.
Wallis Mathias was even more unassuming than Imtiaz Ahmed. For reasons not known, we all called him John and since he responded to it, that well might have been one of his names. I first saw him play at Hyderabad and I think it was against the Indians. He made an elegant fifty or so but he had taken some stunning catches at first slip. I wrote about him and mentioned his name to Kardar. The Skipper did not allow the media to select the team for him but he must have made some inquiries and included him as one of the reserves. Wallis had got one foot in the door.
He made his Test debut against New Zealand in the third Test that was played at Dhaka. Batting low in the middle order he made 41 not out and must have made an impression for he became a regular member of the team and also became the first member of a minority community to be awarded a Test cap. Though he had little to say, he was one of the most popular members of the team.
To the best of my recollection, he never made a Test hundred which may well mean that he was not hungry enough for big scores or lacked the temperament to go through once he had done all the hard work. He was a good player against spin and managed the quicks reasonably well.
But he is best remembered as, perhaps, the best slip fielder Pakistan has ever produced. He didn’t drop many catches and when he dropped one it became a talking-point and he would become an even more quiet person than he was by temperament.
His father was a steward at the Karachi Gymkhana and whenever I went to the club he would make it a point to come and see me and always ask me how his son was doing and I would say that he was doing great. That seemed to make his day for he was very proud of his son and had good reason to be.
I didn’t have much in common with him but I was very fond of him. And why shouldn’t I have been? I had brought him to Kardar’s notice and Kardar had given him his first break. But he had made it on his own and I don’t think we have fully acknowledged the contribution he made to Pakistan cricket.
RADIO listeners always knew when Imtiaz Ahmed was batting for there was a lift in my voice. One never knew what would happen and he could be out first ball charging down the wicket or he could hook the first ball for six. He seemed to have no respect for the bowlers. This would suggest that he was a slam-bang batsman. Not so.
