DR JEHANGIR Khan and my brother Nasir played cricket for the Indian Gymkhana at Osterley Park in Surrey. They were both students then and there was bound to have been some camaraderie between them. But in all the time that I knew doctor saab this had been never mentioned. It seemed to be irrelevant to my relationship with him, which was at the best of times formal and correct. Only once did the ice melt when he came up to me and surprised the hell out of me by telling me that I had played a big part in promoting the career of Majid.
There was little doubt in my mind that Majid’s role-model had been his father, as a person rather than as a player. Dr Jehangir had been an educationalist and there was a certain aloofness about him and he kept a certain distance. A no-man’s land that one finds between teacher and pupil.
Majid too is somewhat reticent and even as a young person seemed altogether too serious which seemed wholly out of character from the way that he batted. But even when he was flaying the bowling, there never seemed that sense of abandon that one saw in, say Rohan Kanhai’s batting. Because he was called Majestic Majid. Perhaps he felt an obligation towards noblesse oblige.
Majid Khan came into the Pakistan team as a medium-fast bowler and his batting skills were unknown. Sometimes in the sixties, a PIA-Eaglets team toured England and Majid was in the team. I am not sure whether he had joined PIA then. Mian Saeed was the manager and Zulfikar Ahmed was his deputy. Majid used to bat low in the order, at number eight. One day, Peter May came to watch the team play and he expressed his surprise that such a good batsman as Majid should be batting so low in the order. Peter May’s opinions had the same moral authority, in a secular sense, as that of the Pope speaking ex-cathedra. Majid got a promotion in the batting order and he took over from there.
He was picked for Pakistan’s team that toured England in 1967 but while he was making runs against the counties, he was failing in the Test matches and there was talk whether he was lacking in Test match temperament. One morning in Swansea, I went to the breakfast room of our hotel and there was Majid sitting by himself and doing justice to the breakfast. I think he was on his second bottle of milk. At the best of times he didn’t talk much but was very single-minded about his meals. I sat down with him and then, out of the blue, he asked me whether I would be doing the commentary that morning. “That’s why I’m here,” I told him. Then he said something totally out of character and he almost made it sound like a threat. “I’m going to score the fastest century of the season.”
Wilf Wooler and Peter West were doing the commentary with me. I was also doing some TV commentary. I mentioned my conversation with Majid on the air and there was some good-natured banter. St. Helen’s ground looks over the Swansea Bay and it is a pretty and friendly ground and I loved the Welsh people. They seemed so different from the English. I had first gone to Swansea in 1962 and though it had rained a lot I had made many friends.
Majid had come in to at number three, if I remember correctly and my fellow-commentators reminded me that he was due to play the fastest innings of the season and I almost felt as if they were taunting me. Majid was a batsman who was not afraid to hit the ball in the air but there was nothing slam-bang about his batting. Certainly he was no Shahid Afridi. But that morning in Swansea, he batted like a man possessed. It was all systems go and he hit 13 sixes or some number in that vicinity. He cut, pulled, drove and he did not play a single wild hoick. These were orthodox cricket shots. He made the fastest century of the season. Incidentally, this was the innings that got him his contract to play for Glamorgan.
But he was not making runs in the Test matches. In 1974 I managed the Pakistan team that toured England and Majid Khan was one of our batting stars. But he had still to make a Test hundred. I noticed that he would sit in the dressing room and would be reading a book. In fact, he had borrowed Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China from me and bring it to the ground and even when padded up, his face was buried in the book. Somehow this didn’t seem right to me.
I don’t know what possessed me but I had this gut-feeling that Majid might be better off if he was opening the innings. I sent for him and asked him whether he would consider opening the innings. Majid does not show too much emotion and he simply told me that if I wanted him to open the innings, he would so. I told him that he was missing the point of the discussion. I was not giving him orders but simply asking him to consider the possibility. There was no pressure from my side and it would have to be his own decision, taken freely by him. He said that he would open.
I think it was the most important cricket decision of his career. It surprised a lot of people and cricket experts in England felt that we had taken a huge risk. But it worked.
One summer’s day in London, Iftikhar Ahmed and I were having lunch at a pub in Lancaster Gate overlooking Hyde Park when Ifthi mentioned to me that Kent was playing Cambridge, at Cambridge. So we decided to take a train to Cambridge and when we got to the Fenner’s Ground, Majid Khan was batting and when he batted classrooms would empty and the students would come and watch him bat. He had a hundred that afternoon. Later he took us on a tour of Cambridge and finally we took the train back to London.
Majid is, of course, a cousin of Javed Burki and Imran Khan. He is different to them. He seems to be too earnest and I think he takes himself a little too seriously. He is a man of definite opinions and can be inflexible. But I have been very fond of him. Tallulah Bankhead, the great stage and screen actress had once said of Dewey, when he was running for president that he was too perfect. If only he had a gravy stain on his tie, she might vote for him. I always felt that Majid needed to unwind. But he was a class act when he was batting.
DR JEHANGIR Khan and my brother Nasir played cricket for the Indian Gymkhana at Osterley Park in Surrey. They were both students then and there was bound to have been some camaraderie between them. But in all the time that I knew doctor saab this had been never mentioned. It seemed to be irrelevant to my relationship with him, which was at the best of times formal and correct. Only once did the ice melt when he came up to me and surprised the hell out of me by telling me that I had played a big part in promoting the career of Majid.
