Imran Khan

by Christopher Sandford

  The Pakistanis made their traditional staggered arrival down under, with one of the selected players reportedly missing his scheduled flight, a second phoning in injured, and a third who reported to the airport both fit and on time but was subsequently found to be missing his passport and other documentation. Abdul Qadir then returned home with a finger problem after bowling a total of only 50 overs on the tour. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Australia won the first Test at Melbourne by 92 runs. Imran struggled to find his rhythm, although Wasim took 11 wickets in the match. Terry Alderman was awarded five lbw verdicts, at least two of them debatable, in the Pakistan second innings. Imran chose not to dwell on Alderman’s good fortune when invited to do so at the postmatch press conference. He later conceded that he had been ‘not happy’ with the home officials. ‘Had Pakistani umpires given the decisions that were given against me and Yousuf, there would have been an outcry. After the way that the Australians had behaved in Pakistan, it took a lot to remain silent.’ According to the local Herald, this was the ‘new and improved’, ‘ultra-dignified Khan’, who was ‘clearly embarking on a global lap of honour before slipping into retirement’.

  This was perhaps to downplay Imran’s combative instinct. In the drawn Test at Adelaide he scored a second-innings 136, part of a match-saving partnership with Wasim that included some notably robust interplay with Australia’s Merv Hughes. The two Pakistanis batted with a beautifully effective mixture of resolve and panache. Imran was at the crease for 485 minutes, hitting ten fours in what was to be his sixth and final Test century. He added a cameo of 82 not out in the deflating anticlimax of a rainy draw at Sydney, giving him a Test batting average of 70 (as compared to a bowling average of 42) for the tour. Richie Benaud reflected general opinion when he described Imran as being at the peak of his form with the bat, and a ‘worthy ambassador’ to boot.

  By previous Pakistani standards the touring party was generally a happy one, and they kept any doubts they had about the umpires to themselves, or at least until they were home again. The loyalty of those around Imran was total, and bordered on hero-worship among several of the younger players — some of his own team were ‘quite intimidated’ when he strode up to bowl, one of them recalled, especially if there happened to be any unseemly ‘verbal’ going on with the opposition. It was as if, in the twilight of his long career, John Gielgud had suddenly materialised on the set of a Vin Diesel film. The 19-year-old spinner Mushtaq Ahmed would remember once dutifully picking up his captain’s cricket bag for him, only to hear a crisp voice say, ‘Please don’t do that. I have two arms and two legs, and I carry my own luggage.’ Some time later in the tour the same bowler was hit for 76 off 10 overs in a one-day international at Brisbane. In the break between innings, Mushtaq, already feeling miserable about his performance, was told to report to the captain’s room. Anticipating a rollicking, the actual review caught him by surprise. ‘You bowled absolutely brilliantly,’ Imran said, in a voice that could be heard throughout the Pakistan dressing area. It was one of those ‘little touches of class’ that ‘kept all of us going’, Mushtaq would remember.

  In short, it seemed that with the Imran era drawing to a close, and the Wasim—Waqar one just beginning, there was a promising atmosphere in which some fresh spirit of accord and common purpose could, and certainly should, take hold among the Pakistan side in the run-up to the World Cup. The one-time comedy team of cricket were finally in danger of being taken seriously. In the meantime, Imran won the Australian player of the year award, along with a sports car which he donated to the hospital fund. Other than his bowling, about his one significant failure on the tour was the launch of his short-lived Cricket Life magazine, which arguably never fully recovered from Imran’s introductory speech made to a room full of contributors, backers, press and other potentially interested parties. ‘It’s amazing how so many of you know nothing about cricket,’ he told them.

  It was a rare misfire. At the end-of-tour World Series international in Sydney, confetti showered down and a band played the Australian and Pakistani national anthems. Imran stepped to a microphone to say thank you. Right around the stadium, said the Sun, there were people ‘waving, cheering, shouting out to him’.

  * Imran has a somewhat different recollection of the selection process at Bangalore. He told me, ‘The only discussion was whether to pick an extra spinner or a seam bowler. I went against Qadir because the Indians had already played him so well on the tour.’

  EIGHT

  Dropping the Pilot

  For all the recent talk of retirement, Imran had actually ceased to be a mere professional cricketer as long ago as November 1978. The job title seems wholly inadequate to describe what he became over the course of the next decade. If one were to pinpoint the exact moment when he’d gone from smouldering young pin-up to the embodiment of Pakistani national pride and aspiration, it would be that evening at Karachi when he smashed India’s Bishan Bedi for a four and two sixes to win the first series staged between the two rival states in 18 years. ‘Overnight, I became a star,’ Imran allowed. ‘I was hailed as the match winner, which was a little unfair on some of my colleagues, [but] we were all amazed by the adulation … Within a few days, most sports shops in Pakistan had sold out of cricket equipment, and posters of the players sprang up in bookstalls, airports and railway stations.’ Imran modestly failed to mention that it was actually the beginning of a major personality cult. Back in Lahore that night there was an impromptu street party whose ranks stretched for almost a mile. Many of the revellers carried banners and signs, some bearing only Imran’s name, and others with a phrase or a statistic characterising some aspect of his life or career. Police estimated their number at 50,000.

  So when Imran once again came to contemplate retiring early in 1990, there was a marked degree of public interest in the outcome. The state president may no longer have personally involved himself in the matter, but nearly everyone else in Pakistan seemed to have an opinion. Imran’s pragmatic decision to become a batsman who could bowl a bit meant, at least in theory, that he could carry on at the top level into his early forties. Or that was the widespread hope. Javed had had a wretched tour of Australia, and it would seem to have been no time for Pakistan to lose both their senior players. That spring, when someone started a rumour that Imran would be unavailable for the six-nation Austral-Asia Cup in Sharjah, one Lahore paper published a special ‘Nation mourns’ edition, its front page rimmed with a black border.

  In the end he did play at Sharjah, and with significant results. The two-week, two-group, 50-over tournament got under way on 25 April and, for all the incessant hype, had its share of longueurs in the early stages — ‘sheer mismatches, one-sided games, ties that didn’t matter much or that were simply short of action or drama or interest’ according to one report. Even Pakistan’s keenly anticipated opening Group B clash against India seemed to fall into a sort of coma. For hours on end this so-called ‘duel in the desert’ involved a good deal of nudging and nurdling, eked out against dourly tight bowling and defensive fields. Pakistan prevailed on that occasion, and similarly disposed of Sri Lanka in a group match two days later. Imran had bowled a total of three overs in the tournament thus far. The Pakistanis’ next fixture, against New Zealand, lasted only two-and-a-half hours, having never quite recovered from the Kiwis being bowled out for 74. Waqar took five for 20. That meant Imran’s side would face the World Cup holders Australia in the final. After the recent tour it had become fashionable among some of the Australian press to murmur wisely that it would perhaps be inadvisable to take the Pakistanis too lightly. In particular, the Sun-Herald made the point repeatedly in the build-up to the competition final. ‘Never underestimate the sub-continentals,’ it said on 2 May. In the Age, the anonymous sports-editorial writer advised: ‘The golden rule is, do not underestimate Imran’s men.’ ‘Do not,’ opined the Courier-Mail, ‘underestimate the bookies’ underdogs.’ By all accounts, Imran, to the extent that he thought about it at all, appears to have be
en mildly amused by the overall tone of the coverage. In his view it was rather more important not to overestimate the Australians.

  The final did at least live up to the advance billing. There were blue skies and a capacity crowd, among which was what appeared to be a cheerleading cabaret dance troupe, with conga drum ensembles, and a contingent of gaudily shell-suited stewards who darted about like a shoal of carnivorous fish. Anyone acquainted with the Scarborough festival has only to think of that end-of-season bash played in tropical heat to get some of the feel of the occasion. One of the Australians later recalled, ‘The squealing and screaming for Imran coming from one particular stand was reminiscent of what Elvis would have copped.’ Pakistan won the toss, batted and scored 266; Salim Malik made 87, Wasim 49 not out, Imran 2. With Steve Waugh, Border, Taylor and Jones in their ranks, the odds at that stage would seem to have been marginally in Australia’s favour.

  As it happens, bookmaking was very much on the Pakistanis’ minds at Sharjah. Some eight years later, Imran told an anti-bribery commission in Lahore that several of his team-mates had been offered ‘considerable sums’ to throw the final. When he had heard this, he said, ‘I was worried. It was quite unusual … after careful thinking, I finally decided to wager all the money we had made in the other matches on our team.’ The idea was apparently to provide the Pakistanis with an added incentive to try even harder to win. One of the players adds that, as a further insurance, the captain had had each of his men swear on a copy of the Koran that none of them stood to profit by Pakistan losing. Imran’s twin secular-spiritual initiative seems to have worked: Australia were bowled out for 230, with Wasim taking a hat-trick to close the innings. As well as their betting profits, Pakistan pocketed a cheque for US$40,000, Imran’s share of which went to his hospital fund.

  To some, including the venerable commentator E.W. Swanton, Sharjah might appear to be ‘just some out-of-season Middle Eastern flummery’. To others, primarily based either in Karachi or Lahore, Pakistan’s stunning triumph over the world champions marked the climax of Imran’s career. If, as was again widely rumoured, he was now about to announce his retirement, he would be going on a high. Pakistan, Australia and the West Indies were clearly in a super-league of their own at both the long and short versions of the game. Of the three, the Pakistanis arguably had the most mercurially gifted pool of players at their disposal. Wasim, Waqar and Aaqib were the tip of the spear, and each in large part owed his place in the team to Imran’s personal patronage. He consistently sought out and encouraged new talent, usually, if not invariably to the team’s long-term gain — a distinct leadership skill that went beyond anything any of his predecessors had dared to try. In the case of Waqar, he’d backed his judgement against the persistent and vocal opposition of most of his co-selectors. Rather than wait for young players to gain experience, as the board had argued, Imran acted, and by acting he’d given them experience.

  For this reason, Imran had earned and deserved what was billed in Dawn as his ‘farewell bash’ or, more lyrically, his ‘last hurrah in Sharjah’.

  Somewhat whimsically, under the circumstances, New Zealand chose to send what was effectively a reserve team to play Pakistan early that autumn. Richard Hadlee had reportedly retired, and four other regular first-team members made themselves unavailable. The tour was not without incident. Imran broke off from his fundraising activities long enough to decline the BCCP’s invitation to captain Pakistan against what he curtly dismissed as a ‘B side’. He subsequently appealed to the board to cancel the series altogether. In Imran’s absence the captaincy again passed to Javed Miandad, in the latest round of what The Times described as ‘the cricket equivalent of a game of musical chairs’. Javed, too, was unimpressed by the calibre of the opposition. ‘They’re sending a second XI against one of the best sides of the world and this is ridiculous,’ he remarked. On the whole, Imran and Javed’s scepticism was justified by the results. The home team won all three Tests, which were played in half-full, eerily calm stadiums.

  No series involving Pakistan could be entirely placid, even so, and on their return home the tourists’ manager, Ian Taylor, accused the opposition bowlers of having doctored the ball ‘by lift[ing] the seam or damaging the surface [to] obtain extra swing’. Mr Taylor went on to admit that Chris Pringle, the New Zealand bowler, had experimented with such tactics during the Faisalabad Test, from which he — Pringle, not Taylor — had been chaired off by his team-mates, having taken seven for 52. The non-playing Imran and the other Pakistanis hotly denied the charges. The whole ball-tampering saga would tick on for another 18 months, at which point it duly exploded.

  Two years earlier, Javed had led Pakistan to victory against Australia and, despite being told he would be captain ‘for an indefinite period’, had promptly stood down to accommodate Imran. Something very similar now happened again. In a dignified statement, Javed announced that he was ‘resigning for the greater interest of the game and the country, [and] will extend support to my good friend and successor’. Once Imran had decided the interests of his hospital would be best served by his prolonging his time as a national leader, his stand-in’s days were abruptly numbered. It’s possible there may have been a degree of professional motivation behind his latest comeback. Imran had played a total of two days’ competitive cricket in the previous six months, but told me he was taken by the challenge of beating the West Indies, who were due to tour Pakistan in November 1990 for what amounted to the unofficial Test championship of the world. There seems to have been the usual amount of administrative upheaval beforehand. The BCCP began by announcing that Imran was now ‘apparently domiciled’ in England, and thus debarred from participating in a series of matches taking place thousands of miles away. It was ‘all over’, one of the board members informed the press. The same unnamed but erudite source went on to compare the situation to that of his hero Cincinnatus, the Roman general ‘who retired gracefully at the height of his powers’. There appear to have been further discussions on the subject, because on 3 November, just six days before the first one-day international against the West Indies, Imran flew in from London. The next morning, he was formally named as Pakistan’s captain.

  In Lahore, fireworks, banners and kites were promptly produced to celebrate this supreme moment. But Imran himself, after pausing to describe Javed’s gesture as ‘great’, was said to have ‘quietly retired to the nets’. Two days later, in Karachi, he met up with the rest of the Pakistan team, and any minor impatience or irritation on their part reportedly dissolved in ‘fraternal scenes’ as they greeted the man they had followed for months if not years, but few had thought they would play under again. By all accounts, there seems to have been a similarly positive response among the general public. After 20 years the affair between Imran and Pakistan’s cricket-watching masses was clearly less of a summer romance and more of a marriage, with a full quota of spats, shared disappointments and, towards the end, a mellowing sense of mutual appreciation, even on the part of some of his long-term critics. Anyway, by late that week the ground authorities had disposed of around 95 per cent of all available seats for the three West Indies Tests, a marked improvement on the recent New Zealand series.

  As a rule, when raw talent overcomes solid professionalism, sport itself is the winner. Such was the gist of the contest between Imran’s volatile yet gifted players and Desmond Haynes’s West Indians, who over the previous year or two, with Richards and several others on the way out and Lara not yet fully on the way in, had generally been less about class than commitment. This time around, the BCCP solved their perennial selection crisis by the expedient of simply giving Imran the team he wanted. The Lahore contingent was substantial: Akram Raza, Salim Malik, Zahid Fazal, Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram and the captain himself. Pakistan swept the one-day internationals 3–0. Imran was man of the match in the final game at Multan, where he top-scored and took a tidy if not devastating one for 26 off eight overs.

  As several of them would later remark, a somewh
at enigmatic relationship had emerged of late between Imran and his men, for all the warmth of their reunion. While not exactly a skipper of the 1930s school with his own changing room and a personal valet to go with it, it was fairly clear by this stage that he was in the officer class. A certain amount of deference from the ranks was thought in order. When Imran took Richardson’s wicket at Multan, the Pakistani fielders had instinctively set off in an animated posse to offer the obligatory high-fives, as per the modern custom. At the same time, the capacity crowd had given full voice to its own pleasure at the dismissal. About the only exception to the general effusion was Imran himself, who merely stood there, hands on hips, with a dignified half-smile. Then, when the first three or four of his colleagues were about a yard away from their target, a curious thing happened. To a man, they applied the brakes. Something in his demeanour apparently discouraged closer proximity. In one account, ‘the dust kicked up behind [the Pakistanis] as each in turn came to an abrupt, skidding halt’, rather like Merrie Melody cartoon characters approaching a cliff edge. With exquisite decorum, Moin, the wicketkeeper, then extended a gloved hand and briefly allowed it to rest on Imran’s left shoulder. Apart from this modest, scarcely perceptible gesture, there was no further direct physical contact between the wicket-taking bowler and his team-mates. Just as quickly as it had formed, the congratulatory committee drifted away again. ‘Imran had millions of fans and thousands of acquaintances,’ I was reliably told, ‘but except for Qadir and maybe Wasim none in the team could be called warm friends.’

  On the other hand, the man voted the ‘most influential Asian sportsman of all time’ in an online poll published that December didn’t attain the position simply through being an ‘imperious bugger’, to again quote his British ghost. He was, by 1990, a benevolent dictator. He could gently correct the senior players if the situation demanded, as well as indulge the junior ones. The young Mushtaq Ahmed would remember bowling to his captain in the nets before the first Test against the West Indies at Karachi. Imran, who was experimenting with a new guard, repeatedly fluffed his usually reliable pull shot. Finally, Mushtaq spoke up. ‘You are not doing this well,’ he said. After a prolonged silence, Imran took a few steps towards the bowler, removed his sunhat and enquired politely, ‘What should I do?’ Mushtaq, with a career batting average to date of 6, remarked that Imran might have better luck with the stroke if he kept his head still. There was another short pause. According to a first-hand observer, Imran ‘reacted to this fairly elementary advice as if he was now hearing it for the first time. He seemed to ponder a bit, before warmly congratulating Mushy on his insight, and go[ing] back to the wicket to play the next few balls with exaggerated care, like Geoffrey Boycott on the first morning of a Test. The message that went out loud and clear to the head of selectors down to the most junior player present was that Imran would take direction from anyone, provided it was in the right spirit.’