IN the death of Jamsheed Marker we have not only lost one of the finest cricket commentators that we have ever had but one of the most popular foreign diplomats who represented Pakistan in many countries.

A member of the Parsi community, Jamsheed, who died in his sleep yesterday morning in Karachi after a protracted illness, was 96.

In the 1950s when Pakistan entered the Test cricket arena, he with Omar Kurieshi formed the ever popular pair of cricket commentators during the first home series against India in 1955. With Omar he was in fact the voice of cricket for Radio Pakistan.

As a head of his family shipping business in Keamari he was as much a well-known figure of the country.

But cricket took a back stage when his friends Aziz Ahmed, a foreign secretary then in the 1950s and ‘Zulfi’, Z.A. Bhutto a foreign minister offered him to join the foreign service.

“Reluctantly I accepted their offer and was posted on my first assignment to Ghana as an ambassador,” he told me when I met him at his house in Bath Island four years ago.

From that first assignment in 1964 to his last as Pakistan’s representative in the Security Council of the United Nation in 1994, he he served in important places like US, the then USSR, France, Germany and most of the European countries as Pakistan’s High Commissioner as well as ambassador.

He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin, Henry Kissinger, Francois Mitterand and Bill Clinton.

From Field Marshal Ayub Khan to Lt General Pervez Musharraf he served under all the Pakistan governments of the time with dignity and respect giving this country a positive image in the foreign lands.

“I had developed a good working relationship with Madame Madeleine Albright the first women foreign secretary of the US when I was ambassador there and she would visit to my place to taste my wife’s Arnaz’s cooking,” Jamsheed remarked to me.

“One day she came up to us and told us, Jamsheed I bought a pair of shoes and my family members did not like it so I went to the shop to return it and asked the salesgirl to what options I have? The girl told me have a refund, but buy another pair of shoes. I told the salesgirl I can’t really make a decision.

“And the girl said: Madame you make decisions on war and peace and you can’t make a decision quickly on what would you like?”

And we all had a good laugh.

Jamsheed told me another story, that of cricket commentary.

“In the series against India in 1955 when at Karachi I offered to share the commentary box with Indian commentator A.F.S. Talyar Khan, who was also a Parsi, told me ‘I don’t’ share commentary with anybody, because I am like a painter who paints a picture and I don’t want to share my views with anyone else.”

I was shocked, Jamsheed told me.

For his services to his country he was decorated with Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam and Hilal-e-Imtiaz.

Jamsheed was also a wonderful writer who authored two very fine books titled Quiet Diplomacy and Cover Point.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2018