Attendances at Invitation Trophy matches showed a marked increase whenever Imran was playing, with a crowd estimated at 3,500 queueing outside the gates of the Gaddafi Stadium long before the start of the first day’s play in the Invitation final between PIA and the Habib. A sizeable number of those in line were young women. When the players themselves appeared at the ground at 9.30 in the morning there was a ‘mob explosion’, according to one Anglo-Pakistani female spectator, whereupon Imran ‘turned around, faced the girls, and raised his arms in a quieting gesture like Moses parting the water. Everyone immediately fell silent.’ Some 90 minutes later, a rising young journalist named Aslam Anwar would be moved to abandon his professional sang-froid when watching Imran run out on to the field to take the new ball. ‘He acknowledged the packed crowd with a combination of dignity, grace and responsive enthusiasm … when the rumble of applause began, it was as though each person there had been struck by the lightning of that smile, the grandeur of that presence … At the lunch interval all one saw were young ladies strolling purposefully back and forth outside the pavilion door, and, in the perimeter, nine-year-old boys enthusiastically practising their run-up technique.’
The Invitation Trophy also took on extra significance as players sought to attract the attention of the Pakistani national selectors, who later announced a squad of 28 to attend a training camp prior to an eagerly anticipated tour of India. Mushtaq Mohammad had been under the impression that he would return to captain the Test side, despite his not having appeared in the World Cup. The board disabused him of this notion by commenting in a press release that a man ‘not fit for one-day cricket can hardly be considered for Test matches’. Despite this public rebuke, Mushtaq then let it be known that he would be ‘happy to tour simply as a regular player’, only to be snubbed a second time. Instead, the board kept faith with Asif Iqbal. Asif, who told me he was ‘thrilled’ to get the job, refused to go on tour with Sarfraz Nawaz in his side (‘I wasn’t prepared to spend 90 per cent of my time looking after one player; the guy was talented, but completely unmanageable’), putting even more pressure on Imran to succeed on the moribund Indian wickets.
According to Javed Miandad, Mushtaq’s ousting was the result of ‘a plot played out by a handful of players who each fancied himself as the next captain of Pakistan’. One former national selector recalled that his committee had sat down ‘in a panic’ at the prospect of appointing Asif, an undeniably fine player, but until recently ‘a prominent member of Mr Packer’s gang [who] was widely believed to have retired from Tests in 1977’. What followed was a tumultuous several hours in which at least one of General Zia’s hand-picked board members argued for Imran’s appointment as a ‘leader of national unity’. The subsequent debate appears to have been a lively one, with ‘fists thumped on tables’ and the somewhat incongruous sight of a uniformed military figure with ‘tears literally rolling down his cheeks’. At some point, a junior selector had taken a position opposed to that of the majority and a colleague remarked, ‘I don’t have to sit here and listen to some Lahori bullshit!’
Taking a leaf from the Pakistanis’ book of a year earlier, Sunil Gavaskar, the Indian captain, indulged in some pre-Test kidology by publicly insisting that the tourists would ‘easily’ win the series, largely because ‘Imran and their other bowlers are in a different class to our guys’, and the visitors as a whole were so much better trained. This blizzard of logic, while true as far as it went, was perhaps to oversimplify the underlying state of affairs. As Imran recalls, the Pakistani cause was hindered by a series of ‘bizarre’ selectorial fiats, of which Sarfraz’s omission was only the most glaring. The panel ‘also thought our regular first XI was sufficient [and] gave little thought to the right reserves … [They] assumed the wickets in India would turn, so they brought two slow left-armers, a leg-spinner and just three seamers. We were picked on reputation and the selectors ignored our lack of depth. That became a criminal neglect when I ran into injury problems.’ Meanwhile, in a notable reversal of their earlier practice, most Pakistani media predictions now left little room for failure. ‘WHITEWASH!’ was the uncompromising forecast emblazoned in a banner headline across one Lahore daily. Three months later, Imran was to conclude that Asif had been ill served by the pre-tour publicity, which listed his team as the greatest ever to leave Pakistan. ‘We had a lot to live up to … The relentless publicity was too much. The team eventually gave up … some of the players went to pieces.’
The scenes that greeted the Pakistani tourists on their arrival at Delhi airport moved even Imran, who by now was used to a certain amount of mass adulation. As well as the formal reception committee, possibly as many as 800 local cricket fans were jam-packed on to the terminal balconies, screaming and tearing at their clothes. In time an officially delegated young girl came forward and gravely presented each of the visitors with a garland — the first of many — before backing away again into the crowd, as if in the presence of royalty. An ad hoc ticker-tape parade ensued to the Pakistanis’ city-centre hotel where a ‘WELCOME’ banner adorned with likenesses of Imran and the other players was splayed across the main street. After a second effusive greeting by representatives of the Indian board, the tourists were shown upstairs to their rooms, the floors of which were strewn with a regularly replenished supply of rose petals throughout their stay.
Now there was just the matter of the cricket.
The first Test, at Bangalore, was a draw, although one that did little for the tourists’ morale. Zaheer, in particular, looked out of sorts, and the Indians could hardly recognise him as the destroyer who had taken their attack apart just 12 months earlier. Pakistan were perhaps fortunate to escape with another draw in the second Test at Delhi. No fewer than six of their men were down with a virus, and to compound their problems Imran then pulled a rib muscle and could bowl only 8.3 overs in the match. It proved to be the worst injury he had yet suffered as a professional cricketer. Back in the hotel, Asif remembers it suddenly dawning on him that this might not be Pakistan’s series after all. ‘That Delhi pitch was a seamer’s paradise, as shown by the fact that Sikander Bakht took 11 wickets in the match. India were left chasing something like 390 in the last day and a half. We held on for a draw, but if Imran had been fit I would have backed us to win easily. Sometimes these lost opportunities take a lot of getting back, particularly when you’re playing in front of 50,000 screaming fans in a blazing hot stadium in India.’
I asked Asif whether, given the nature of Imran’s injury, he’d considered placing a call to Sarfraz, their main wicket-taker against India in the previous series, who was kicking his heels back in Lahore. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never, never, never,’ he added by way of emphasis. ‘It was made clear to me that our government expected there to be no incidents of any kind while we were in India. These were two countries who had been at war, remember, and our even going there was a huge event. Under the circumstances Sarfraz was literally the last man I would have sent for.’ ‘The guy was a time bomb,’ another senior player confirms. Several other well-placed sources broadly concur about the talented but awkward Sarfraz, who was thought a handful even by the standards of Pakistani representative cricket, whose ranks also included a man who played a perpetual phantom golf game while fielding in the deep, a batsman who considered his loss of form to be the result of black magic, and a third individual who later tirelessly insisted he was a Mogul emperor and had the documentation to prove it. The articulate and always opinionated Sarfraz was eminently sane by comparison, but even so ‘perhaps lacking in political skills’, in Asif’s measured phrase.
Imran promptly broke down again in the third Test at Bombay, and got through the next 15 overs only in excruciating pain. India won by 131 runs. At an ill-tempered press conference the tour management accused the ground authorities of doctoring the pitch after the match had started. One down in India generally takes some winning back, particularly when you have only three fit bowlers at your disposal. By now Asif was on tranquillisers and
beginning to have renewed thoughts of retirement. Imran sat out the fourth Test, which was a draw. Adapting the trend seen in Australia, Sikander kicked down the stumps on having an appeal disallowed, one of several protests taking place in either verbal or material form against alleged bias on the part of the umpires; following the match Asif talked of calling off the rest of the tour, which the home team said they would not have been too sorry about. Once again the wicket would have suited Imran down to the ground, as seen by the fact that Kapil Dev took six for 63 for the Indians and, bias notwithstanding, Sikander five for 56 for the tourists. In those marginally more relaxed touring days there was often an interval of as much as two or three weeks between Tests. Imran needed the break, as it was to be nearly a month before he felt fully himself again. He celebrated his recovery by bowling flat out in the nets, whereupon he promptly strained his back. Omitting to mention this latest setback to his captain, he played in the fifth Test at Madras, which India won by 10 wickets. It says something for Imran’s competitive spirit that even in acute discomfort he took five for 114 in India’s first innings, which included his 100th Test wicket. The raucous celebrations which had broken out in Pakistan at a comparable stage the preceding winter now had their counterpart in India. The tourists at least salvaged some self-respect, and Imran had nine victims, in the drawn sixth Test at Calcutta.*
Nineteen wickets in the series may not sound a lot, but judging from his form at Calcutta a fully fit Imran would have doubled that total. Pakistan’s real problem was their batting. Only Wasim Raja and Javed Miandad did themselves justice; Asif and Majid managed just 267 and 223 Test runs respectively, while Zaheer’s average showed a not insignificant decline from 194.33 in 1978–79 to 19.62 in 1979–80. Back home, the Pakistani press executed a broadly similar U-turn in their treatment of the players. Once again, Imran was singled out; according to one front-page report, his back injury was the result of ‘lecherous activities with Indian actresses’, one of only ‘many debaucheries by Asif’s merry men’, who in fact had been subject to a strict 10.30 p.m. curfew throughout the tour. By itself it was a trivial slur, scarcely a tabloid pinprick amid the much wider celebrity Imran had begun to enjoy. But it was the beginning of what he describes as ‘a campaign of malicious [and] ill-informed gossip’ that would continue right through his cricket career and beyond.
In contrast to the scenes at Delhi airport, the Pakistanis’ late-night return to Lahore just 11 weeks later resembled an expressionist film set, all deserted grey corridors relieved only by the appearance of unsmiling customs officials with sniffer dogs. After what Imran describes as some ‘rough treatment’, the players walked out into the windswept car park, where a small but emphatic crowd had gathered to shout abuse at them. In the ensuing post-mortem, both the chairman of the board and Asif resigned. The latter was replaced by the 22-year-old Javed Miandad, whose appointment occasioned some surprise, not least to Javed himself. ‘I came to believe, however, I was deserving of the honour,’ he notes. ‘Although there was some vocal dissent, I don’t feel this reflected the general mood in Pakistan. I believe the majority of the public were behind me, and welcomed the board’s daring move.’
Javed got off to a winning start in a three-Test home series against Australia, thanks in large part to some extremely slow pitches. Pakistan won the first Test at Karachi and drew the remainder. Imran managed to take a total of six wickets in the series, which was three more than Dennis Lillee. Lillee publicly vowed never to return to Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the new president of the board, Air Marshal Nur Khan (no relation), called Imran in to assure him that he had a very bright future in the team and that he would do whatever he could to advance his career. Short, that was, of making him captain. A long-time colleague adds that Imran ‘appeared to have accepted the decision’ and ‘seemed philosophical when he told me about it. He sort of sighed deeply once or twice. He wasn’t combative in any way.’ Ten years after the event, Imran was to say that ‘appointing Javed was a major error, which led to immediate problems. He was too young to handle the team.’ The long-serving Zaheer, for his part, admitted he was ‘crushed’ not to have got the job. Javed responded by dropping Zaheer for the third Test against Australia.
It’s a curious fact that Imran could be widely recognised as, on his day, the most hostile fast bowler anywhere in Test cricket, while assessments of him at the County Ground, Hove, were more reserved. He was never in serious danger of being released by Sussex, as he feared he might be. That would have been to display self-destructive skills beyond even the reach of most English cricket administrators. The club did, however, offer Imran only a one-year contract for 1980, thus paying him a full £4,850 (roughly £25,000 at today’s prices) for some six months of his ‘sole, unstinting and exclusive’ services, as well as providing the usual subsistence-level food and travel allowances. At the same time the county lost Javed Miandad but gained Garth le Roux, whom Imran had originally recommended to the club after playing with him in World Series Cricket. The burly Cape Towner, though at this stage perhaps notable more for his speed than his control, was soon among the wickets. Ironically, Imran’s generosity was initially to backfire on him when the Sussex captain, Arnold Long, somewhat eccentrically announced that it was ‘too risky’ to go into a match with both his overseas fast bowlers, who would therefore have to rotate. In the event, early-season injuries to several key players forced Long to rethink his policy, and the Imran-le Roux axis duly provided Sussex with one of the most dangerous new-ball attacks in their history. The county’s batting also improved beyond recognition, owing not least to a free-scoring 20-year-old newcomer named Colin Wells. Wells was to hit numerous sixes in the general direction of the English Channel, and to pass 1,000 runs in his first full season. His team-mates did not nickname him ‘Bomber’ for nothing.
As already noted, on a personal level one or two of the county players had their doubts about Imran, whom broadly speaking they saw as that seeming contradiction in terms, an ‘introverted snob’, to quote one admittedly jaundiced ex-colleague. Other, rather closer friends deny he was any such thing, but allow that he was perhaps at the couth end of the Sussex dressing-room. Certainly, for whatever reason, Imran was to find the Eton-educated Johnny Barclay a more congenial club captain than his predecessor Long had been. The appreciation seems to have been mutual. Barclay says: ‘Imran always tried his hardest for me. My only reservation about him was that he had a rather flexible approach to timekeeping. He wasn’t one to exactly make a fetish of punctuality. You’d sometimes call a meeting promptly for 10, and Imran would tend to saunter in at around quarter to 11. But he was always there in the middle when you really needed him, and I found him a delight to captain.’
Barclay confirms the general impression of Imran the county cricketer as ‘someone [who] was a model professional on the field, but otherwise largely invisible. If play finished at 6.30 in the evening, he would have vanished by 20 to seven.’ On many of the nights in question Imran would take the first available train to London, where he found ‘a much-needed escape [from] some of the frustrations and tensions of full-time cricket’. As a general rule, such relief tended to come in the company of various sleek young women. The Middlesex bowler Mike Selvey had first met the young Imran in 1971, and occasionally saw him socially in London. ‘He had some stunning escorts at times,’ Selvey confirms. While Imran’s expeditions took in a wide variety of activities, and not just the one people most associated him with, the basic routine involved spending prolonged amounts of time with some of the more raffish elements of the British aristocracy, although he good-naturedly denied this when teased by his Sussex team-mates. Sometimes there would be a little dressing-room banter behind his back about all the upper-class totty. ‘Imran claimed a lot of friends in comparatively low stations of life,’ one colleague recalls. ‘I don’t doubt he was extremely gracious to the cleaner and the guy on the gate. But I regarded them as his imaginary playmates. In my experience he was more drawn to the
toffs, and clearly they were to him.’
Thanks to the vagaries of Arnold Long and the weather, Imran had to wait until the end of May to make his home debut for Sussex that season. He announced his return by taking six for 80 and scoring a fiery 82 against Kent, who included Asif Iqbal in their ranks. One of the visitors’ spinners recalled that Imran had shown an exaggerated respect to his first over, but that he had soon come to realise this was only a temporary respite as the batsman played himself in. ‘He then tonked most of my second over into the road.’ A fortnight later Imran was back at Lord’s, playing in a Benson and Hedges quarter-final tie against Middlesex. According to the report in Wisden, ‘the match had an extraordinary start and an even more unusual finish’. Imran was involved both times. Opening the Sussex attack at 10.45 on an overcast morning, he swung the ball so extravagantly that he took three wickets and bowled 11 wides in his first nine overs. At the other end, Geoff Arnold uncharacteristically proved nearly as wayward. The total number of extras conceded by Sussex, 38, was higher than their eventual margin of defeat.
Seven hours later, Imran found himself batting with the Sussex No. 8 Tony Pigott, who was being bounced on average twice an over by Middlesex’s Wayne Daniel. (Daniel had broken Keppler Wessels’s hand with an earlier riser.) In Imran’s account, ‘I protested to [the umpire] Jack van Geloven about Daniel’s bowling and asked for a ruling … Mike Brearley spotted that the umpire was confused and came running up to me, rather than the umpire. We had a fairly rude exchange of words and Mike Gatting had to drag Brearley away.’ Here some slight discrepancy exists with Brearley’s own account of events. He told me, ‘It was a bit rich for complaints about bouncers to be coming from Imran, who wasn’t averse to bowling them himself. I wanted to get my point across to the umpire, I seem to recall, whom Imran was blatantly trying to influence. So I said something like, “Imran is pissed off because he couldn’t get it up.” Which I admit to be provocative. Imran marched towards me almost as if he was going to hit me with his bat. I stood firm. At this moment my arms were gripped from behind by my young colleague, who had come trotting in from mid-on, and who thus managed to deflect my ire from Imran to him. From the [press box] it may have looked like I was about to have a physical fight, which wasn’t the case.’ Both sides at least agree about the timely intervention of that master of diplomacy, Mike Gatting. In his report van Geloven stated that he had ‘never heard such ripe language, either on or off the cricket field, as Imran’s’ — high praise coming from a man who had played for Yorkshire in the 1950s. As a result the TCCB asked each county to enquire and to take action. On 15 July the board’s Disciplinary Committee stated that the matter was closed, as they were satisfied with the ‘firm reprimand’ Sussex delivered to Imran, and with Middlesex’s perhaps lesser ‘expression of regret’ that Brearley had become involved. It remains a rare instance of two of cricket’s otherwise most dignified figures ‘showing all the finesse of a pair of Irish drunks’, to quote, if not endorse, van Geloven’s private account.
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