If anyone thinks that they can rest or take it easy after retirement they should meet Iqbal Qasim. Two-and-a-half decades after retiring from cricket, the former left-arm leg break bowler still finds himself as busy as ever.

However, life picked up rather slowly at first for the little Memon boy named Mohammad Iqbal Qasim Ali who enjoyed playing cricket with the other neighbourhood children in the busy streets around Karachi’s Jubilee Cinema.

“It was either playing on the streets or at the Baradari,” says the former cricketer. “Baradari was the weekend playground for some 25 to 30 cricket teams playing there all at once, and just 30 to 40 feet away from each other,” he explains.

“But after we shifted to Nazimabad, there were several big empty plots there to take our game to. Cricket was always more popular than football and hockey. We played with the tennis ball before we heard of the tape ball,” he reminisces.

Playing for the neighbourhood club, Qasim got selected for his college team soon after doing his Matric. “The first match I played for Jinnah College during the inter-collegiate cricket tournament was against Urdu College. I scored 25 to 30 runs and took four wickets in the first innings and helped my team win the match. A college teacher watching that match presented me with my first reward of Rs50,” he shares the fond memory.

The next step on the ladder was joining the Nazimabad Gymkhana, a Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA)-recognised club.“I did that for a while before agreeing to do a bit of wicket keeping in order to get a foot in at least,” Qasim remembers.

Qasim says that he worked very hard at his keeping. “Seeing me play, the great cricket mentor Master Aziz, too, commented that as a lefty I could become a great keeper,” he says, “So even though I was not enjoying it, I’d pick up the gloves whenever I’d see Master Aziz. My heart was in bowling though.”

Maybe Qasim could have kept on with his keeping and the world wouldn’t have known the great bowler in him had it not been for his getting snubbed at the club’s annual function. “That was the occasion where I was to be awarded a little cup promised to me for my wicket keeping. So excited was I at getting some sort of recognition for my hard work that I had told everyone to come to the event to see me receive my prize. The event came and went without any cup. That was the end of my wicket keeping,” he says.

“I took the maximum wickets while playing in the Jimmy Khambatta Cup. But when the names for players for the KCCA team came in the paper, I never realised that the ‘Mohammad Iqbal’ in the list of 75 names was in fact me. ‘We are not your servants to be calling you after printing your name,’ KCCA Joint Secretary Siraj Bukhari scolded me for not showing up for training after that. So when I said that just ‘Mohammad Iqbal’ was too common a name for me to figure out it was me as my full name was Mohammad Iqbal Qasim Ali, the gentleman just told me that they’d call me Iqbal Qasim from thereon,” Qasim laughs at the memory.

Initially a bowler, who could bat, too, Qasim became known as a bowler after shifting all his focus to bowling on getting hurt by a bouncer during the final of a PCB under-19 competition when sent out at number three.

With his playing career streamlined to some extent, the young man then turned his attention to other important issues including getting a job. “Hailing from a Memon family where kids start earning in their mid-teens, I heard a lot of things from the family about remaining idle,” Qasim points out.

“I tried getting a job in the National Bank of Pakistan as I wanted to be a part of their cricket team but they weren’t interested in hiring me despite my repeated attempts. Ghulam Rasool (GR) Memon, secretary at the Burroughs Wellcome & Company, liked cricket. They needed a part-time worker in the company so he hired me at a salary of Rs175 a month. This was in 1970 or 1971,” says Qasim.

“Later, having taken 21 wickets in three matches for the KCCA during the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy, I got an offer to join the NBP team which I accepted at once,” he continues.

“The NBP team already had a left-arm spinner Naeem Ahmed. My chance only came after Naeem joined PIA in 1975. During the 1975-76 domestic season, I played for the NBP to be named one of the best five players of the year with 76 wickets in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy. Liaquat Ali a left-arm fast bowler was also in there with an equal number of wickets,” Qasim remembers.

It was that recognition which got him in the Pakistan team in 1976. “Javed Miandad, Mudassar Nazar, Haroon Rashid, Mohsin Khan and Sikandar Bakht were the other newcomers alongside me,” Qasim says.

It was no looking back from there on for the great bowler. Making his debut in the Pakistan v Australia Test in Adelaide in December of 1976, he took some 171 Test wickets for Pakistan until his last Test in October 1988, also against Australia, in Lahore. The Bangalore Test against India in 1987 where he took nine wickets for 121 runs, including getting Sunuil Gavaskar out on 96, while guiding Pakistan to victory to get their first series win on Indian soil is one of the highlights of his career.

“That was more like my swan song,” says Qasim, smiling at the memory. I got selected for the England series on the basis of that performance but ended up being assistant manager of the side. “There was so much administration work to do during that tour that there was just no time to play anyway,” says the former chief selector.

“Times were changing, too. Abdul Qadir became the regular leg spinner followed by Saqlain. And then there was no place for me after Mushtaq Ahmed and the others. In fact players like Wasim, Waqar, Salim Malik, Ijaz Ahmed, Saleem Jaffar, Saleem Yousuf started the transition period of players like Sadiq, Majid, Zaheer, Bari, Sarfaraz and me. We became better known as Test cricketers as one-day cricket became more popular. I only have 11 to 12 wickets in ODIs,” he says.

Today, having seen all the highs and lows of the game, he treats all sports persons with utmost respect. As the head of NBP’s corporate social responsibility department, something which keeps him busy from morning to evening, Qasim, besides a lot of other things, is also responsible for the wellbeing of sports persons. “When you take a person’s youth, you cannot just discard him like nothing later. Those sports persons who are past their playing age are fitted in regular banking if they are interested in that. Otherwise, they can also work for the promotion of sports in our academy,” he explains before getting back to work.

And having accepted his hectic 8.00am to 10.00pm routines long ago, his wife today only inquires about his lunch or dinner preferences before packing off the tiffin to his office.