FOR the next few days, National Stadium Karachi will remain in focus with the cricketing world for hosting as many as eight matches of the HBL PSL including the final.

Renovated and refurbished, the NSK now reminds of its glory of the yesteryear when the international teams often used to tour Pakistan and graced the arena in the metropolis.

The first cricket ground to be built after the creation of Pakistan, the NSK boasts of rich history of matches. Before it came about in 1954-55 most of the visiting teams to India before partition and while visiting Karachi played their matches at the Karachi Gymkhana ground including the unofficial Tests against Pakistan. Be it Arthur Gilligan’s MCC in 1926 or Lord Tennyson’s MCC in 1936, the Nigel Howard’s MCC of 1951, they all played at the Gymkhana.

Once Pakistan joined the Test playing nations as a full member of the ICC in 1952, it had become necessary to have full-fledged venue to host Test teams of the world and hence this grand stadium came into being with the effort of the then BCCP under the professional guidance of a Bengali Civil Engineer from East Pakistan Mr Kafiluddin Ahmed who was based in Karachi at the time.

Having taken the responsibility of building this stadium to host this city’s first ever official Test, Kafiluddin left no stone unturned to raise the structure within a record time of two and a half years with a stand on each side of the present pavilion and the players’ dressing rooms under the stands.

The visiting Indians led by Vinoo Mankad played their final Test of 1954-55 here at the NSKwhich also happened to be the first ever first-class match on this ground. The series had ended in a stalemate with all the five Tests ending in draw.

I watched that India Test sitting on a rocky hill opposite the present pavilion. Later, I also watched a Test against New Zealand which Pakistan won by an innings and one run at the NSK from the same spot on the hill. The scenario was the same when the first Australian Test team under Ian Johnson took on Pakistan in a solitary Test at the NSK which Pakistan won comprehensively, with the great Fazal Mahmood taking 13 wickets in the match. All those matches were played on matting wickets.

Even when the President Eisenhower of United States visited the National Stadium in a Test along with Field Marshal Ayub Khan against Australia in 1959, led by Richie Benaud, nothing had changed as tents and marquees sheltered the crowds from the sweltering sun.

Thanks to Kafiluddin Ahmed who designed and built the stadium, the NSK venue started to take shape later on when the first West Indian team arrived in 1959.

An avid fan of the game, Kafiluddin also started a PWD cricket team and employed local cricketers in the organisation to give them a financial boost that included Little Master Hanif Mohammad who went on to become a legendary batsman of Pakistan.

In the national cricket board’s years of infancy, this sports loving engineer was mainly responsible to look after its affairs along with Justice Cornelius and Pakistan’s first Test captain Abdul Hafeez Kardar. He became member executive committee of the then BCCP and for a while served as the treasure of the board as well.

The national stadium has hosted more Test matches than any ground in Pakistan, as many as 40 of them, and have seen Pakistan losing only two of them, one against England in 2000-01 and the other against South Africa in 2007. A run of first 34 Tests without losing any is no doubt an enviable record.

From the first century maker in Test on this ground which was opener Alimuddin, to triple century scorer Younis Khan in 2009 against Sri Lanka, the venue boasts of remarkable feats and achievements by home cricketers as well as from the foregin teams including greats of the game like Sir Viv Richards, Sir Garfield Sobers, Brian Lara, Sunil Gavaskar, Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad to name a few, not forgetting Sachin Tendulkar who like Waqar Younis made his Test debut here.

It would be been nice to have the name of Kafiluddin engraved somewhere in the corner of the National Stadium to remember what he gave this city to cheer about.

It is to his credit that even after the 1971 East Pakistan crisis, Kafiluddin as a patriot decided to live and die in Karachi in the early 80s.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2019