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Style and substance
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
Javed Miandad ... A street fighter in cricket.
INDIANS who have visited Pakistan generally feel more at home in Karachi than in Lahore. Lahore is an old, insular, feudal city, after 1947 ethnically cleansed of Hindus and Muslims. It is the home of a military and business elite, which is engaged in a game of upmanship with India. Karachi is an outward looking city of the coast, more concerned with money than with power, and more hospitable to outsiders. That, at any rate, was how I saw those two cities on my own visits to Pakistan, and my impressions have been echoed by others. And since the Mohammeds were more likeable opponents than the Khans, one would think that these stereotypes are also confirmed by cricketing experience. There are, however, two notable exceptions.
A Lahori cricketer who laughed more often than he scowled was Zaheer Abbas. He made friends easily, even with men from across the border. An artist with the bat, Zaheer made his money and reputation playing in the Country Championship for Gloucestershire. Young Rahul Dravid is said to have recently remarked that: "on the off side there is only God and Saurav (Ganguly)". Show the lad some clips of Zaheer, I say. For he was a wonderfully wristy stylist, supreme through the covers, through back foot and front. To the middle-aged men Bristol and Cheltenham, Zaheer brought back memories of Tom Graveney. Those who could go further back invoked Walter Hammond, another Gloucestershire man who ranks up there with God and Ganguly.
A Karachi batsman who hated Indians, and who was cordially hated in turn, was Javed Miandad. Javed was a street fighter who took his rights and some of the rights of others too. Unlike Zaheer, who was a specialist, if a rather special one, Miandad was a superb all-round fielder who could turn a leg-break and keep wickets when asked to. Where Zaheer sometimes flinched when facing Michael Holding or Andy Roberts, the Karachi terrier would come solidly into line. But both men were murderers of slow bowling. No one has quite mastered the Indian Holy Trinity of Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Prasanna as Zaheer did in 1978-79, scoring 583 run sin five innings, three of these unfinished. Of all the boundaries he hit that winter, I shall single out a stroke off Bedi that seemed for all the world to be a forward defensive push, yet raced away past cover for four.
Miandad also played brilliantly in that series, 357 runs at an average of well over 150, I still recall the shock I received when he hit Chandrasekhar — the destroyer from my native Bangalore — out of the ground at Lahore. Four years later, he caused a great deal of anguish to another outstanding slow bowler, Dilip Doshi. In one match, the Indians were staying in a hotel, which looked over the ground. When it was Javed's turn at the wicket, he kept asking Doshi the number of his room. The bowler wouldn't answer, but an eavesdropping Gavaskar asked Javed why he wanted to know. "So that I can hit my next six into it," came the answer.
It is a joy to remember that this Pakistani took his toll of English spinners too. David Gower tells a wonderful story of an early encounter Javed had with Ray Illingworth. Now "Illy" liked to come on to bowl the last over before lunch, when, with English batsmen at any rate, one could safely go into the pavilion with the splendid figures of 1-1-0-0. The first time he played against Miandad, leading Leicestershire against Sussex, the country captain came on, ritually, to bowl just before 12. Javed hit him for three boundaries and a two; Illingworth 1-0-14-0 at lunch.
In December 1979, I saw Zaheer and Javed play in Bangalore. On the first day of this first match of a six Test series, Mudassar Nazar batted dourly from morning till dusk, scoring 100. The man next to me had his ear cocked to All India Radio, where the great Lala Amarnath referred to the opener, time and again, as "Nazar Mohammed". That was his father, against whom the Lala had played back in 1952. The confusion was understandable, for he too was caution personified, scoring 124 in 515 minutes in the Lucknow Test of that year. The senior Nazar took his risks off the field, retiring prematurely after a jump out of a third floor window, a leap necessitated by the imminent entry into the room of the husband of the lady he was then dating. (One might question Nazar Mohammed's timing, but not his taste, for the lady in question was the beautiful singer and actor, Nur Jehan).
Anyhow, this day in Bangalore while Mudassar blocked at one end, at the other the more adventurous Pakistanis unfolded their wares. First came Zaheer, who played some gorgeous leg glides off Kapil Dev, almost Ranji-like in their perfection. When Dilip Doshi came on to bowl, he cracked the spinner past cover and mid-wicket before being stumped for 40. That brought in Javed, who for a long session between lunch and tea toyed with the spinners, cutting Doshi and driving the off-spinner Shivlal Yadav through the on-side, himself yards down the wicket. After Miandad was dismissed, for 76, we were allowed a brief glimpse of Wasim Raja, the left-hander with dreamy eyes and a rollicking off-drive.
Almost 20 years later I saw, on television, Javed play his last innings on the ground he learnt his trade, the National Stadium in Karachi. The occasion, England versus Pakistan in the 1996 World Cup: the background, the hero's return to the national side after three years in enforced exile. When he came in to bat the stadium erupted. The cheering was so wild and prolonged that even the unsentimental Javed smiled and shook his head in happy disbelief. Commentating at the time were two Englishmen. One, the spiteful kind, remarked that the reception was calculated to ensure that no umpire would dare give their man out l.b.w. He was at once put in his place by his colleague, Geoffrey Boycott, a man who knew well what respect and honour from a cricketing community signifies. "Nothing of the kind," scolded the man who had scored his 100th first-class 100 in a Test played in front of his own home crowd. "It is a just and deeply felt tribute to a truly great player."
That raucous reception was in stark contrast to the silence, which greeted an innings played by Javed later in the tournament. This was at Bangalore, where Pakistan were playing India in the quarter-final. The visitors chased 287 and lost half their side for under 150, but, as I and the other 60,000 people at the stadium all knew, the match was not over until Javed was out. The old fox fought hard, guiding Salim Malik and Rashid Latif through retrieving partnerships. But first Salim and then Rashid were dismissed. Finally Miandad also fell, his old legs unable to beat a quick throw from short third man. The crowd was, as I have said, silent while Javed batted, and they were now shamefully silent as he walked off. In the pavilion, I stood up to applaud him for, with his side now out of the tournament, he was finally departing the scene of international cricket. My applause for Javed was met with dark looks and hoots of derision from the bigots around me. I continued standing, and clapping. It was a moderately brave act of which I remain immoderately proud, as a just and deeply felt tribute to a truly great player.
The writer is the editor of
The Picador Book of Cricket.
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