Imran Khan

by Christopher Sandford

  ‘Cornhill Insurance welcomes Pakistan, for the summer both sets of players and their supporters have long been looking forward to,’ trumpeted the sponsors of the 1987 Test series in an ill-timed press release just as the two national boards went to war with one another. At least initially the main bone or contention was the professionally well-regarded if occasionally brusque David Constant. It seems not to have escaped the visitors’ attention that although the TCCB had agreed to a request by the Indians to have Constant barred from their 1982 tour of England, the authorities had refused a similar appeal from the Pakistanis later that same summer. Pakistan’s current tour manager Haseeb Ahsan wasn’t alone in seeing a double standard at play. Ahsan went on to publicly criticise Constant, who stood twice in the 1987 series, and at one point described him as ‘a disgraceful person’.

  Before the cricket began, there was a five-hour meeting between Imran, his tour manager and a representative of the BCCP on one side and Alan Smith, the new chief executive of the TCCB, and two assistants on the other. It went badly. Citing the 1982 precedent, Imran asked that Constant be appointed for only one Test, if that, and appears to have expressed broadly similar doubts about Constant’s colleague Ken Palmer. Smith flatly refused to accept any restrictions on the TCCB’s freedom of action to choose whichever umpires they wanted. One side or the other (reports vary) then leaked the Pakistanis’ request, and the TCCB’s response to it, to the press. Smith promptly issued a statement from the English first-class umpires in support of their colleagues on the Test match panel. Haseeb Ahsan went on the counterattack, insisting that he and his team were the victims of rank prejudice. ‘It was absolutely hysterical,’ he would later remark. ‘The English press were adamant … They instigated nationalist fervour to prove that the real cheats were Pakistan.’ (‘I did sense a certain jingoism that built up over the summer,’ Imran confirms today.) A number of the tabloids, notably the Sun, in something of a fit of cricket patriotism since England’s successful winter tour of Australia, began hounding the Pakistan captain to apologise for ‘having called our officials’ integrity into question’. All this time David Constant was actually standing in the Test match at Lord’s. It also quickly became clear that Imran was unlikely to bond with the England captain Mike Gatting, a model pro of the old school who seems not to have actively gone out of his way to assuage the tourists’ concerns about gamesmanship. As the series progressed, relations between England and Pakistan deteriorated both on and off the field. In the one-day international at Birmingham, in late May, there were ‘ugly scenes beyond the boundary,’ noted Wisden, ‘provoked by racial pride, racial prejudice and alcohol’. By the time of the Test match at the same venue two months later, there was a daily contingent of 820 police and stewards to keep order at the ground where total attendance was just 37,000 over five days, a ratio of one minder for every nine paying customers.

  On the broader level, the Pakistanis’ objection to David Constant opened a new chapter in the ‘neutral umpires’ saga which Imran had taken up as a personal crusade. In a rare display of unity, the BCCP and their national captain had jointly tried to elicit Alan Smith’s support for the initiative by pointing out that this was a case where ‘the so-called colonials’ had taken the lead over the ‘ex-mother country’. The phrasing of the Pakistanis’ claim was not untypical of the mood whenever administrative matters were discussed that summer. But Smith and his team still weren’t convinced. The journalist Chris Lander later described Imran as ‘building up a good head of steam’ about the perceived arrogance of the home authority. He went on to say that the tourists’ manager was ‘pop-eyed with anger’ in his account of the clash of wills between the two boards. At home in Pakistan, even Karachi’s leading weekly had temporarily called off its campaign against Imran and gotten on board with the ‘neutrality’ issue. ‘We can readily acknowledge that there were problems with our umpires, but our lords and masters won’t deign to follow suit,’ it wrote.

  Seeming to add to a generally stormy tour (literally so, as it poured throughout) was the Pakistanis’ staggered and occasionally fractious arrival in England. ‘We were treated with disdain by the TCCB, the press and even the Customs from the moment we landed,’ Imran recalls. ‘At Heathrow the team was made to stand aside, while other passengers looked on as sniffer-dogs went through our luggage.’ In the ensuing news conference, Imran fielded a half-hour’s worth of questions about his personal life and then calmly announced, ‘We believe we will beat England well.’ After the sniggering had died down, a young female reporter from the Mirror leapt up to ask the Pakistani captain whether he was ‘seeing anyone special’ in England. ‘Look,’ Imran replied, ‘I’m here to talk about cricket and I don’t think most people care about what I do outside of that. All they’re interested in is this series.’ The reporter gave it a second, and then asked her follow-up question: ‘Are you still living with Emma Sergeant, Immy?’ That concluded the interview.

  Meanwhile, Javed Miandad, the vice-captain, was still at home in Karachi, where the tax department had taken an interest in the Mercedes awarded him after his match-winning six against India in Sharjah. While negotiating with the authorities, Javed was also awaiting the birth of a son. Abdul Qadir would similarly miss the first eight weeks of the tour because his young wife was under medical care for a variety of issues in Lahore. In the end Iqbal Qasim agreed to accompany the party as Haseeb Ahsan’s deputy, apparently with the promise that he would play if circumstances allowed. Despite Qadir’s prolonged absence, Qasim bowled just 18 overs in the 15-week tour, none of them in the Tests.

  Imran declined to appear in Pakistan’s first three warm-up matches, which were respectively abandoned, drawn and lost. When he did return, against Essex, he ran in at half speed and bowled Graham Gooch with his first ball of the tour. That was the prelude to several miserable weeks for Gooch, who later announced that he was giving up the county captaincy to concentrate on his batting. Although Imran rarely if ever slipped himself on the tour, no one doubted his powers of motivation or self-discipline. Peter Smith of the Mail called him ‘fifty per cent more rabid’ than any other Test cricketer. Sport was his life, and he concentrated single-mindedly on the struggle. Even on a rare day off, Imran was known to choose to go for a run by himself around Hyde Park, after which he typically put in a full afternoon in the nets at Lord’s. On match days he jogged into the ground ahead of the other players, inspected the wicket, checked the weather forecast and for the next 90 minutes installed himself in a corner of the dressing-room where he would brief individual players about what was expected of them. Javed Kureishi sometimes watched Imran ‘prowling around the room, practising his shots with an almost trance-like concentration before walking out to bat’, which may help to explain why the BCCP official’s intrusion of a year or two before had been so poorly received. After eight or nine hours’ cricket, he then met with his tour manager, dealt with any tactical or disciplinary issues arising from the day’s play, briefed the press and stepped outside to sign autographs before retiring to Tramp or a similar nightspot. Although ‘geriatric’ for a fast bowler, in Today’s uncharitable view, Imran suffered his only significant injury on tour when he strained a stomach muscle while lifting weights two days before the full internationals began. Despite being advised to rest for at least a week, he was the first player on the ground for the first Test at Old Trafford.

  On the match itself, a draw, it’s best to be brief. Just over half the playing time was lost to the weather. Even so the English batsmen were able to indulge their new-found habit of walking down the pitch to punch gloves with one another after a routine forward defensive, or even after playing and missing. Botham’s innings of 48 in 130 minutes was punctuated by an orgy of hugging throughout. Another feature of the match was the Pakistanis’ over rate, which was relaxed at the best of times. With Imran off the field for an X-ray of his thumb, the tourists sent down just 62 balls in an hour after tea on the second day. When Micky Stewart, the England manager,
commented that this seemed to him to be a bit on the slow side, Imran reacted by saying, ‘We always get slagged off and called cheats. I object to that.’

  Lord’s, the next venue, was under water on the first morning and under water again on the last evening. Between the floods, there was only seven hours’ worth of cricket. Pakistan never got to bat. Conditions were only marginally better for the Headingley Test. Even by 1987 standards it was a bruising encounter, with what The Times referred to as ‘indecorous’ behaviour on both sides. Chris Broad was unlucky to be given out, caught behind off Imran, in England’s second innings, a decision that left the batsman visibly unimpressed. Some time later, the Pakistan wicketkeeper Salim Yousuf enthusiastically claimed a catch off what appeared to be the second if not third bounce from Botham’s outside edge. The umpire was not happy. Nor was Botham, who shortly after the match conceded that, in the heat of the moment, ‘I may have accused the keeper of sharp practice.’

  This was a notable paraphrase. What Botham actually told Yousuf was, ‘You cheating little bastard. If you ever try that again I’ll knock your head off.’

  At that the umpire, Ken Palmer, advised Yousuf to conclude his appeal and go back to his position. Botham writes, ‘At the end of the over, Imran came across and I asked him what he was going to do about it. He told me that if I hadn’t sworn at Yousuf he would have been forced to make an apology.’ Wisden has a slightly different version, praising the timely intervention of both umpire Palmer and Imran, the latter of whom ‘reacted smartly, dressing down Yousuf in no uncertain manner’.

  The other significant development in England’s second innings also concerned Imran, who was now ‘fairly satisfied’ with his fitness and confirmed the point by taking seven for 40 off 19 overs. On the way he became the eighth bowler to capture 300 Test wickets. Among the crowd was the former England captain Ted Dexter, who still recalls ‘watch[ing] Imran take the old ball and suddenly produce this prodigious swing. It was the “reverse” phenomenon all over again.’ Dexter, a keen student of the physics of cricket, was later intrigued to come across ‘an article by an American academic’ — Imran’s old grammar school friend Rabi Mehta — ‘involved with the space programme, [who] authored a paper on the dynamics and effects of the airflow over a ball. In time I managed to arrange a meeting with him at Lord’s, where some super high speed photography and demonstrations took place, although some like [former England bowler and chairman of selectors] Alec Bedser remained unconvinced.’ It was all a bit confusing. A year later, however, Mehta published a further, much quoted paper on the science of reverse swing, which essentially confirmed the Pakistanis’ long-held belief that there was nothing particularly mysterious about the whole process; it just needed ‘the right kind of ball’, and ‘the expertise to use it’.

  Thanks to Imran’s bowling, Pakistan won the Leeds Test by an innings. There were still nearly two days’ play in hand. Some of the large Pakistani contingent in the crowd, armed with impromptu instruments, saluted the occasion with native music and dancing on the outfield. Imran was man of the match. ‘He led the team well,’ Javed allows. ‘He was a good listener … I liked to share my insights, and the captain was always receptive.’

  After that there was little to do but play out another draw at Edgbaston, where England finished at 109 for seven, chasing 124; Imran took a further eight wickets. The tourists had a single county match, against Hampshire, before the fifth Test. Although nominally the captain of the visiting side, Imran took little active part in the proceedings. He did, however, find time for a public tongue-lashing of the Hampshire captain Mark Nicholas, who told me about the incident.

  Imran didn’t appear on the second day of the game, ‘resting up’ in his hotel after batting quite well on the first. On the third morning he swanned in suggesting that Pakistan use the day for batting practice before the Test as a result was unlikely. I said I thought he should make some quick runs and declare to set us a target and thus entertain the crowd. He said he wasn’t there to entertain the crowd, and I said I wasn’t there to help his team warm up before a Test against England. This became a full-on row beneath the press box in front of the members. Eventually Imran stormed off, calling me an arrogant public school boy. I shouted back that it took one to know one.

  The match was drawn. ‘Javed led the side while Imran was back at the hotel,’ Nicholas adds, ‘and kept telling me he couldn’t do a thing without his captain’s agreement … It was all pretty childish,’ he admits.

  The final Test, at The Oval, saw Pakistan score 708. Javed was in his element and made 260, apparently once again in failed pursuit of Sobers’s Test record. Just before the match, Imran had announced that this was to be his last appearance for Pakistan. He scored 118. In one 30-minute spurt on the second afternoon he and Javed put on 44, which consisted of 43 to Imran and a leg-bye. Following on, 476 runs behind, England escaped by virtue of 150 and 51 by Gatting and Botham respectively. Before the match Imran had chaired a long and reportedly heated meeting of the tourists’ selection panel, most of whom felt that Abdul Qadir was out of form and should be dropped. I was told that Javed, among others, had again made a ‘sustained’ case for Iqbal Qasim, just as had happened five months earlier in Bangalore. This time Imran persevered and Qadir played at The Oval; he took his best Test figures of seven for 96, including a spell of four wickets in 35 balls, in England’s first innings.

  After beating India and now England on their home grounds, Pakistan were on a roll. If Imran was indeed going out, he was doing so at the top. Not only had he fulfilled most of his ambitions as a captain, he’d maintained his own form both as batsman and bowler. Reflecting on the 1987 series, Ian Botham was to write, ‘I still regard Immy as my greatest rival in the world all-round stakes.’ It was a generous tribute, if one the facts only partly support. In the five Tests that summer, Botham had a batting average of 33 and took seven wickets at a fraction under 62 apiece. Imran had a batting average of 48 and took 21 wickets at some 22 each. ‘The bounding, big-hearted Both [was] still good value,’ Today correctly observed, but there was only one all-rounder’s name up in gold leaf on Test cricket’s 1987 honours board.

  In county cricket, unlike most sports, financial rewards tend to be a result of longevity rather than exceptional talent or popularity. After an extended period of service, even the journeyman player can look forward to a benefit season with the prospect of earning a six-figure sum, tax free. Despite having exasperated at least half the county membership at one time or another during his 22 years there, Geoff Boycott would net £147,954 from Yorkshire in 1984. Graham Gooch did even better at Essex the following year. Imran’s turn came in 1987, exactly a decade after his controversial move to Sussex from Worcestershire. When all the figures were added up he made an eminently respectable £100,000, roughly ten times his basic annual salary from the club. ‘I am both flattered and honoured,’ he wrote in his fundraising brochure, ‘and deeply thankful for all the friendship and support shown me by players and members alike. It’s been more like a home from home than just a cricket club.’ For all that, Imran’s notion of what constituted a dignified benefit differed significantly from that of many other players. ‘It was just legalised begging,’ he later remarked. ‘I thought when I saw a sheet being carried about for supporters’ money during Mike Procter’s testimonial year that a great cricketer was being degraded. I vowed that I would do things differently.’

  ‘Basically, Imran wanted a benefit, but he didn’t want to walk around shaking a collecting tin,’ says Jonathan Mermagen. Mermagen sat on the organising committee, and came up with a number of ‘perhaps more select’ celebrity events involving the likes of Bill Wyman and Adam Faith, as well as a gathering of 2,000 fans at the Hammersmith Palais. There was also a star-studded match at the county seat of cricket’s Anglophile patron Paul Getty. Getty ‘went ballistic’, a witness reports, ‘when Imran, who had been out at a club the night before, was 20 minutes late in appearing for the toss’. Tony Pigott als
o attended some of the functions, among them a glittering black-tie dinner in Brighton. ‘Imran was perfectly friendly, but it was pretty clear his heart wasn’t in it. You certainly wouldn’t call him the life and soul of the party. He sat there at the top table, listened to the tributes, and then stood up and made a speech in which he said something like, “I don’t actually need this. I don’t really want your money”, and about five hundred faces around the room fell flat.’ Another player says bluntly, ‘The timing of the whole benefit was an exquisite cock-up on someone’s part.’ Thanks to Imran’s international commitments, his one appearance of the year at Hove was when Sussex hosted the Pakistanis before the first Test. Eschewing sentiment, he took five for 61 against his sometime county colleagues. Imran declined to join Sussex for the last month of the season, but did appear for the Rest of the World against the MCC in the club’s bicentenary match at Lord’s. For once, the sun shone. Imran enjoyed a run-a-minute partnership of 180 with Sunil Gavaskar in the Rest’s first innings. Some half an hour into the stand, pace gave way to the gentle off spin of John Emburey, who had played in four of the summer’s Tests against Pakistan without taking a wicket. His first ball, dropped short, was deposited by Imran into the president’s box above the Tavern concourse. Hadlee returned to the attack soon afterwards, and went for three off-side fours in an over. Gavaskar scored 188, Imran 82, and the match was drawn.

  In the watering holes of Kensington and Mayfair, the reaction to Imran was, if possible, even more effusive than in Pakistan. A self-styled ‘old deb’ and future journalist named Alix Gibb was on hand for a late-summer London charity fundraiser where a number of women, in ball gowns, escorted by a liveried butler, moved from room to room and ‘finally entered the inner sanctum, at the far end of which Imran was standing, with his hand in his pocket, leaning casually against a mantelpiece … Our party slowly advanced, some of the [women] bowing their heads as if in the presence of royalty … Imran stood quite motionless, apparently oblivious or indifferent to the homage paid him.’ Another guest at the same event remembers Imran ‘surrounded by a sizeable mob of female admirers bent on touching the hem of his coat, if not considerably more’. Certainly his fan base had long since ceased to be confined to the sports world. ‘It was the same sort of frenzy — slightly more localised — that Barack Obama enjoyed 20 years later,’ Gibb now reflects. ‘It was a great thumping love-fest. Imran appeared to be genuinely thoughtful and in earnest about his desire to make the world a better place. Between that and the big brown eyes, what could a girl do?’