I am 51, which makes me Gen Z at heart.
It also means my cricket perspectives are rooted in times far gone by.
I was an ’80s kid, which was an uncomplicated era.
Everything was on steroids.
I grew up singing Madonna and Nazia Hassan, dancing to Thriller, flexing muscles like Arnold after watching “pumping iron” on VHS, wearing faded denim jackets and fake Nike’s.
Just like those very cool Americans on colored TV.
Freedom.
Those were good times for Pakistan too. We were winning everything in sight those days, PIA, Steel Mill, PTV, hell even God’s war against the Soviets.
We were a three-sport nation then. In fact, my first memories of Pakistani victories weren’t on the cricket field. Jahangir Khan would rock up to the biggest global squash events with long hair and tight shorts, and walk away with every title available to man (not much for women those days), often winning finals against world No. 2 or 3 without breaking sweat. four or five of top 10 squash players were Pakistani in those days and victory was all but guaranteed for the greaTest nation on earth.
The other big sport, arguably equal to cricket, was hockey. My first vivid memory is staying up late to watch Pakistan beat the mighty West Germans in 1984 Olympics final. It started an all-night party all around the country like it was day time, my first such national victory celebration.
Later in the decade, an even bigger party was reserved for the bronze winning Hussain Shah boxer in 1988, when boxing was a thing for Pakistan, so much so that great Ali visited Pakistan too the same year. Zia also departed that year, which may have added to the occasion.
The only other sports related party I remember is of Maradona winning the Mexico 1986 World Cup for Argentina. Selected games were broadcast late night in Pakistan on frequently interrupted livestreams, but nothing was missed by any Pakistani worth their salt. Argentina’s victory was a victory for the world, against their Western masters. No surprise, that if there was ever a non-Pakistani, Pakistani sports hero in my time, it was Diego Armando Maradona Khan.
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I do not remember the great Pakistani cricket victories against India and England in 1982 but I do recall being in growing awe of a phenomenon called Imran Khan. He was already big before my time, but in ‘82, the new captain was at his peak. He took 62 wickets @13 in one season, scored centuries, captained his team to some famous victories and did it all while looking better than Waheed Murad. It was just not possible to not know him as the most towering figure in that age of many Pakistani titans.
First time I saw him play, it was at a party at my relatives’, with everyone watching in silent worship as he was batting. I didn’t know cricket then, and could not tell him from his batting partner Sikandar Bakht, both tall and in white helmets. Only when people started hurling obscenities at Sikandar, not even caring for the presence of the suddenly bashful ladies in the family, could I tell one from the other. To this day, I don’t know what sin Sikandar committed, or indeed what some of those impossible sounding swear words meant.
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The first two Test series I properly watched were the 6 Tests split equally between Pakistan and India, home and away, in 83-84 and 84-85. In hindsight, it was probably the tamest, most mind-numbing anthology of non-events ever assembled in the history of sport. Each day was like the last – a titanic struggle to not let things happen that would cause other things. Many a run was scored, but only when the previous one was a distant memory. The ensemble of characters - Gaekwad, Mudassar, Naqqash – were all talented blokes, but were not exactly recruited to for their ability to move ideas forward. The only person who tried to wake up the audience from their merciful slumber was Wasim Raja – who would occasionally hit a six or two in his short stay. To recover from these kinds of transgressions, there was even a full rest day assigned in the middle of each Test match.
I think the last Test in Pakistan was abandoned when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. They might have carried on playing though, we don’t know to this day.
For me, a kid getting his first taste of the sport, it was better than getting a brand new Nintendo Game & Watch ‘Donkey Kong’ game. I was in heaven. Sex wasn’t invented then.
I also developed my second cricket crush in the process, the captain Javed Miandad (Imran missed that series due to his 3-year groin injury.) I unequivocally consider Javed the best Pakistani batsman I ever saw. He was our go-to man when the chips were down, walking in at 14 for 2 more often than I could count. Marshall and Patterson, Lilly and Alderman, Hadlee and Chatfield breathing fire. Inevitably, he would set about rescuing the ship, jittery at first, assured as things went on, and masterful toward the end.
You respect your best players no matter what sport, but you adore your men of crisis. Miandad was the progenitor of that back to the wall, fight unto death, lower middle class anti-hero category in Pakistan cricket, that you don’t find in a Babar or a Rizwan of today, like you wouldn’t in a Zaheer or a Majid of yesteryear. Until Javed happened.
In Imran’s prolonged absence, Wasim Akram debuted (credit to Javed) in the ‘85 New Zealand series,. I saw him take 10 wickets in only his second Test in Dunedin. Somehow I didn’t think of him to be a potential great, so different was he to all that was conventional. Later, he played in the magnificent World Championship of Cricket ODI event in Australia in1985 (pretty much a Ravi Shastri show) where Imran was coming back from his injury. He saw Wasim take 5 wickets in the very first game, took him under his wings, and never let him escape.
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My First Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – Australasia Cup Sharjah Final 1986
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series.../india-vs-pakistan-final-65816/full-scorecard
Even before that Sharjah final, Pakistan were a good team. We would win some Test series, ODIs against most teams (not the West Indies) and could cause an upset or two on any given day against the mightiest teams.
But we were not good enough to win tournaments.
We competed well in World Cups and Asia Cups but there were never any trophies. Not one.
That six changed everything in Pakistan cricket.
I am a witness.
My mother was a doctor in Pakistan Air Force. As she entered home when the six was hit, khaki uniform, stethoscope and all, what she saw alarmed her no end. I was hurling myself from couch to carpet and back, breath in disarray, face red, eyes unfocused and sweat all over. I had not seen this much happiness in my life and didn’t know what to do with myself. She forced me to sit, made me drink water and take deep breaths, so I could live and tell this tale.
People died that day.
But Pakistan cricket got belief.
We became contenders.
From then on, we went on a spree that would take us to number 1 in Tests and win us tournament after ODI tournament. We would enter every Test or ODI series as favorites and more often than not, end up winning it.
No surprise 3 my last 4 defining moments of Pakistan cricket came in the next 6 years.
It was also the time when cricket journalism was pure and joyful. Every month, I would run to the bookstore to buy Munir Hussain’s Akhbar-e-Watan (yes a cricket magazine) which had an inside track into Pakistan’s dressing room, and read ever cricket story over and over. Every article was an allegory on Pakistan’s cricket and every photograph a work of art. There was also “The Cricketer” whose stats section followed to track Imran and Miandad’s bowling and batting averages and even calculate them live after each game, ahead of the next edition.
It truly was a simple time. I won’t know where to start today with cricketers playing so many different formats and in so many teams.
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My Second Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – Pakistan vs India Bangalore 87
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...dia-vs-pakistan-5th-test-63456/full-scorecard
Imran had this great quality that only exceptional leaders do – he could raise the level of his team to the highest degree of their capability. He would do this by turning a series or an event into an almost holy conquest (the 1982 England series was a revenge against 100 years of colonisation, for example), announce his mission on the biggest stage to the world and then get the entire country behind him with series of interviews. It was extraordinary to live it.
In the ’80s, he set 4 big missions - beating England in England, India in India, West Indies in West Indies and Lifting the World Cup. Nothing could come in his way to stop them. He proclaimed these goals even when the series were years away and would not let go.
He even stopped Gavaskar from retiring so he could beat him in India.
Bangalore Test, after a largely insipid preceding 4 Tests edged by India, is quite a non-Pakistan victory. The fast bowlers only took 2 out of 20 wickets, Miandad made only 24 across 2 innings, no Pakistani batsman scored even a 50 and their main spinner Qadir didn’t even play. Yet somehow everyone played a part with small contributions, the two spinners Tauseef and Iqbal Qasim with big ones, Gavaskar defied on a spitting pitch till the end and it all added up to the greaTest Pakistani Test victory since Fazal’s Oval in 1954.
The difference between the two teams after an epic decade long build up was just 17 runs.
The victory parade in Lahore signalled Pakistan’s complete superiority over India in cricket after the Sharjah six, and would get as close as possible to the definition of ‘mental disintegration’ that Waugh coined years later.
It was to India’s credit that despite losing to Pakistan in bilateral and small tournaments regularly, they would still not roll over to the formidable Pakistani pace battery in the ‘88 away Test series (otherwise known as Tendulkar’s debut series) or in ICC events even then.
It was therefore a massive shock when in 1987 home World Cup, Pakistan lost to Australia in the semi-finals in Lahore – despite Imran scoring 50 and taking 3 wickets. I remember everyone walking in stunned silence the next day, cursing Wasim Jaffer for the expensive 18-run last over, Steve Waugh for the expensive 18-run last over and Javed for his slow 70-off-120 balls which was slow even for those times.
That World Cup loss took the joy out of Imran’s cricket and he announced his retirement despite 2 of his goals not achieved. The country went into a second shock and what followed was a proper pantomime with the whole nation in tears pleading with him for months to take back his retirement. Ultimately, the great savior Zia appeared like a Cheshire cat, Imran reversed his decision and eventually wrote 2 more great chapters in Pakistan’s history. It helped Zia sign off his own worldly chapter with a grin.
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My Third Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – Pakistan vs West Indies Guyana ‘88
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ies-vs-pakistan-1st-test-63481/full-scorecard
The best Test match I ever heard. Series was on radio only.
I believe that Test series to be the greaTest in my time.
West Indies were dominant since mid 70’s. They were unchallenged home AND away. You just didn’t take them on. You didn’t even talk about it.
Pakistan were the only team that dared to do so. They had skittled them out for 53 in the previous series at home, and felt at the cusp of history.
For all that, the tour started rather poorly with a spectacular 5-0 loss in the ODI series preceding the Tests. Pakistan would have taken a game or two, especially as Viv Richards missed the first part of the tour, but West Indies introduced, totally out of syllabus, an 80-foot monster called Ambrose. He terrorised Pakistan in his very first game with 4 wickets, and never looked back. Or down.
In some ways though, those ODIs were just the right preparation for the Test series. By the end of the one dayers, Pakistan knew what they were going to be up against – be it surfaces, opponents, or atmosphere.
Imran made them work hard. I remember tales of Rameez batting in the nets while bald tennis balls doused in water were hurled from mid-pitch at his head, to prepare for West Indian bumpers.
Mentally too, they were ready to fight to the last ball.
The first Test played out as they prepared.
Richards and Marshall’s absence had already opened the door for Pakistan, the batters made useful contributions in both innings, and Pakistan’s stars showed up - Imran took 11 wickets in the match, Javed scored a long-awaited Caribbean century and Qadir snared top order wickets. West Indies could not withstand the many dimensions of Pakistan’s attack - batting and bowling – and eventually lost by 9 wickets.
The result was seismic in the cricketing world. For a total cricket nerd like me, it was just inconceivable. I never did believe Imran when he had said we could beat them at their home.
The next 2 Tests were, if anything, even more incredible. In the second Test, Richards returned and scored a hundred and a 49. Marshal returned and took a 4-wicket haul. Imran took another 9 wickets in the game, Qadir took 8 and Javed scored another hundred. The last batsman survived the final 5 balls to hold on to a draw, but not before Pakistan ran a formidable 372 runs target close. In the last hour, they needed to see out 20 overs with just 2 wickets left, and yet could have won it.
The last Test went further. West Indies won by 2 wickets chasing 268 with 9th wicket pair putting on 60-odd runs. I remember that partnership. Pakistan commentators were not happy at local umpires who helped Benjamin and Dujon with 3 dubious calls against Qadir, while in the background a charged crowd was baying for their blood.
That Test match was the only cricket mission of Imran’s that I remember not finished in his time. Imran could not bowl in the final innings due to injury, which in some ways equalized Richard’s absence from the first Test.
The series was a draw but felt like a loss. Pakistan’s continued insolence against the West Indians also took them to number 1 in rankings for a brief period, not that we knew at the time. It sowed the seeds for West Indian cricket’s demise from which it has not recovered.
It is the only one of my 5 moments, where there was no parade.
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Pakistan had quite a few successful engagements after that too, including winning against England in England. The grand victory in Nehru Cup in India where we ironically defeated West Indies in the final stamped Pakistan as the dominant team of its time. It was a high-quality tournament too, played only by the best 6 teams. It became the precursor to the modern Champions Trophy as we know today. Wasim hit the winning six on the penultimate ball off Richards (who had his bowler sequence wrong). Imran was the man of the tournament for his 252 runs @63 and 6 wickets@25.
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My Fourth Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – 1992 World Cup
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ngland-vs-pakistan-final-65156/full-scorecard
I watched the first innings at my University’s auditorium in between classes. I think Pakistan scored 50 for 2 in first 20 overs. Javed was out plumb too, but the occasion got to the ump. It looked pretty much over before it began.
Then Inzi showed up, Wasim followed, and Pakistan scored 90 in the last 10.
No one moved until the first innings finished, and by then, everyone knew we had won it.
I watched the second innings at home with family. The roars that followed those two Wasim specials would not stop for days.
While Australasia Cup changed Pakistani cricket, I believe, 92 World Cup changed World Cricket. It injected a kind of mad romance into the sport not previously associated with it. Pakistan’s route to the final was no less than a Shakespearian drama, despair and euphoria interwoven all the way to the end. Every character had a tale. Javed the top scorer for Pakistan was at first dropped. Anwar and Waqar, our most lethal batsman and bowler at the time, got inured at the eve of the event. Inzi had no form. Mushy’s place was uncertain. Ejaz and Sohail, were primarily batsmen, but were to bowl throughout the tournament. Iqbal Sikandar, who knows what he did. And Imran, our best bowler of the last decade, could only bowl medium pacers.
By mid-tournament, Pakistan were practically out, depending on every available result and even the weather, going their way.
Then Imran the leader showed up with a rallying cry, like all great leaders do, to fight like “cornered tigers.”
When everything called for tactics and patience, he unleashed the real Wasim against Australia with a complete license to kill, and in an inspired opposite move, told batsmen to preserve wickets upfront without worrying about strike rates. Then he got hold of Nusrat’s Allah Hoo, played it over and over on the way to and from the ground, and turned a down-and-out dressing room into believers.
Imran turned a makeshift team into world champions, then delivered a most terrible victory speech and never picked a bat or ball again.
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In that euphoric moment, no one could imagine our cricket, and the country itself, would fall so steep, that all the promise that day held will be forsaken in wave after wave of disaster. It makes my heart bleed.
That world cup just released something sinister for its people.
If one were ever to write Pakistan Cricket’s defining “calamitous” moments, the ’90s and 2000’s will take the giant share.
It came early after Imran’s retirement.
Players revolt, match fixing, ball tampering, drugs snorting, oath taking, backstabbing, injury faking, illegal bowling, there was no evil that we left untouched. It was accompanied by a ruinous revolving door of captains, players, selectors, and chairmen, wrapped in conspiracies and accusations.
Pakistan’s cricket history had all that before too, more than any other board, just not all at the same time and with so little shame, in full gaze of the world.
Then came Bob Woolmer’s death in the 2003 World Cup, followed by the gun attack on Sri Lankan players amidst the carnage going on all around the nation. It began Pakistan’s long exile from home matches.
These two decades should have been our golden age. After all the cricketers of that era – Inzi, Anwar, Akhtar, Waqar, Saqlain, Malik, Yousuf, Razzaq, Azhar, Afridi, Moin, Asif and of course Wasim – would walk into most line ups of today without breaking a sweat.
Certainly would replace today’s Pakistan team, man for man.
They delivered some tremendous victories in that era – England in England, Australia Tri series, India in India (Tests and ODIs), India and South Africa at home, New Zealand in New Zealand, bilateral ODI's, Regional Cups and others.
When these players were on, they would light up the cricket world.
Yet in the trophy cabinet, they have not much to show for themselves.
In Tests at home in the ’90s and early 2000’s, this team of superstars was beaten by not only England, Australia and South Africa, but also by Sri Lanka and even Zimbabwe. We also lost a home series for the first time in our history against India. The away series to Australia and South Africa were no conTests and remain so today. We also had a Test forfeiture to our name, for good measure.
In ODI World Cups, except for ’99, we didn’t reach a semi-final in World Cups once (have not done it till now.) That 1999 World Cup loss by our mightiest team ever remains one our biggest on-field tragedies (on par with the lost Sidney Test of 2010, the 2007 T20 final or that 1988 West Indies 3rd Test).
T20s became our saving grace. We have made semi-finals in 6 out of 9 World T20s and the win in 2009 against all odds, in exile, remains one of Pakistan cricket’s biggest back to the wall victories. The team played as a team under Younus, Akmal, Gul, Ajmal, Amir and Afridi sprinkled magic and Pakistan avenged their 2007 loss.
This triumph should have been in my defining moments. However, it just served to hide what was wrong with Pakistan and its cricket at the time.
These were the times where Pakistan cricketers were regularly fixing spots and matches for money.
There was a point when one could not tell if a victory was real victory, a defeat a real defeat. It not only tainted the cricketers of that era, but also corroded an entire generation that followed. Collectively, they also defiled the proud legacy of their seniors.
This dark era reached its peak when Amir, Asif and Butt were caught in a news sting accepting money for bowling deliberate no-balls. All the grotesqueness of that era is captured in that picture of Wahab, adorned in his leather jacket, wads of cash spilling out of all pockets.
While those younger than me may revel in the shiny days of that era, for me it was the beginning of my distance from Pakistan cricket.
When you don’t know if a sport is clean, it is hard to make memories from it.
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Misbah brought much needed stability to the side. Pakistan cricket owes him plenty.
Under his leadership, Pakistan went back to playing cricket. Not only that, we won or drew majority of home series (played in UAE) and did creditably in away series.
The 3-0 England demolitions at UAE were particularly satisfying. I remember sitting with maybe 500 other spectators through an excruciatingly boring four days of Test cricket in soulless Dubai and Sharjah stadiums, before wickets would fall on the 5th day.
In away series, Pakistan beat the weaker teams and lost to stronger ones. Misbah’s push ups at Lord’s in an entertaining 2-2 series was the highlight. Our most outstanding victory in that time was Misbah and Yousuf’s final game, where they finished Imran’s unfinished business of beating West Indies away, achieved in style with that Gabriel’s “why did you do that” swipe.
Pakistan also lifted the mace as the best Test team in the World in that time, first time since 1988. It was a monumental achievement, unthinkable when the match fixing event happened.
However, they. didn’t beat champion teams of the day on their turf - Australia, India or South Africa. Therefore, I have not included it in my defining moments, although it is very close.
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My 5th Defining Moment – Champions Trophy 2017
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ndia-vs-pakistan-final-1022375/full-scorecard
The 2017 Champions Trophy final victory over Kohli’s India was everything the nation needed. It finally put brought closure on the darkest chapter in Pakistan’s history, and not just that of Pakistan’s cricket.
It truly felt like the 2nd minute of ‘one minute down, next minute up’ story
It was also a Testament to the messianic chaos only Pakistan brings to cricket, that Amir was at the center of it all.
When Kohli’s wicket went down, streets got their dancing shoes again after a long long wait, this time beating to the tune of ‘dhoka dhoka’.
No matter what has transpired later in Pakistan’s cricket, it has been from the lens of cricket alone, and not outside events.
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That dreamy eyed ’80s kid, living the best days of Pakistan and its cricket, is no more.
But the flame still burns.
It also means my cricket perspectives are rooted in times far gone by.
I was an ’80s kid, which was an uncomplicated era.
Everything was on steroids.
I grew up singing Madonna and Nazia Hassan, dancing to Thriller, flexing muscles like Arnold after watching “pumping iron” on VHS, wearing faded denim jackets and fake Nike’s.
Just like those very cool Americans on colored TV.
Freedom.
Those were good times for Pakistan too. We were winning everything in sight those days, PIA, Steel Mill, PTV, hell even God’s war against the Soviets.
We were a three-sport nation then. In fact, my first memories of Pakistani victories weren’t on the cricket field. Jahangir Khan would rock up to the biggest global squash events with long hair and tight shorts, and walk away with every title available to man (not much for women those days), often winning finals against world No. 2 or 3 without breaking sweat. four or five of top 10 squash players were Pakistani in those days and victory was all but guaranteed for the greaTest nation on earth.
The other big sport, arguably equal to cricket, was hockey. My first vivid memory is staying up late to watch Pakistan beat the mighty West Germans in 1984 Olympics final. It started an all-night party all around the country like it was day time, my first such national victory celebration.
Later in the decade, an even bigger party was reserved for the bronze winning Hussain Shah boxer in 1988, when boxing was a thing for Pakistan, so much so that great Ali visited Pakistan too the same year. Zia also departed that year, which may have added to the occasion.
The only other sports related party I remember is of Maradona winning the Mexico 1986 World Cup for Argentina. Selected games were broadcast late night in Pakistan on frequently interrupted livestreams, but nothing was missed by any Pakistani worth their salt. Argentina’s victory was a victory for the world, against their Western masters. No surprise, that if there was ever a non-Pakistani, Pakistani sports hero in my time, it was Diego Armando Maradona Khan.
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I do not remember the great Pakistani cricket victories against India and England in 1982 but I do recall being in growing awe of a phenomenon called Imran Khan. He was already big before my time, but in ‘82, the new captain was at his peak. He took 62 wickets @13 in one season, scored centuries, captained his team to some famous victories and did it all while looking better than Waheed Murad. It was just not possible to not know him as the most towering figure in that age of many Pakistani titans.
First time I saw him play, it was at a party at my relatives’, with everyone watching in silent worship as he was batting. I didn’t know cricket then, and could not tell him from his batting partner Sikandar Bakht, both tall and in white helmets. Only when people started hurling obscenities at Sikandar, not even caring for the presence of the suddenly bashful ladies in the family, could I tell one from the other. To this day, I don’t know what sin Sikandar committed, or indeed what some of those impossible sounding swear words meant.
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The first two Test series I properly watched were the 6 Tests split equally between Pakistan and India, home and away, in 83-84 and 84-85. In hindsight, it was probably the tamest, most mind-numbing anthology of non-events ever assembled in the history of sport. Each day was like the last – a titanic struggle to not let things happen that would cause other things. Many a run was scored, but only when the previous one was a distant memory. The ensemble of characters - Gaekwad, Mudassar, Naqqash – were all talented blokes, but were not exactly recruited to for their ability to move ideas forward. The only person who tried to wake up the audience from their merciful slumber was Wasim Raja – who would occasionally hit a six or two in his short stay. To recover from these kinds of transgressions, there was even a full rest day assigned in the middle of each Test match.
I think the last Test in Pakistan was abandoned when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. They might have carried on playing though, we don’t know to this day.
For me, a kid getting his first taste of the sport, it was better than getting a brand new Nintendo Game & Watch ‘Donkey Kong’ game. I was in heaven. Sex wasn’t invented then.
I also developed my second cricket crush in the process, the captain Javed Miandad (Imran missed that series due to his 3-year groin injury.) I unequivocally consider Javed the best Pakistani batsman I ever saw. He was our go-to man when the chips were down, walking in at 14 for 2 more often than I could count. Marshall and Patterson, Lilly and Alderman, Hadlee and Chatfield breathing fire. Inevitably, he would set about rescuing the ship, jittery at first, assured as things went on, and masterful toward the end.
You respect your best players no matter what sport, but you adore your men of crisis. Miandad was the progenitor of that back to the wall, fight unto death, lower middle class anti-hero category in Pakistan cricket, that you don’t find in a Babar or a Rizwan of today, like you wouldn’t in a Zaheer or a Majid of yesteryear. Until Javed happened.
In Imran’s prolonged absence, Wasim Akram debuted (credit to Javed) in the ‘85 New Zealand series,. I saw him take 10 wickets in only his second Test in Dunedin. Somehow I didn’t think of him to be a potential great, so different was he to all that was conventional. Later, he played in the magnificent World Championship of Cricket ODI event in Australia in1985 (pretty much a Ravi Shastri show) where Imran was coming back from his injury. He saw Wasim take 5 wickets in the very first game, took him under his wings, and never let him escape.
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My First Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – Australasia Cup Sharjah Final 1986
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series.../india-vs-pakistan-final-65816/full-scorecard
Even before that Sharjah final, Pakistan were a good team. We would win some Test series, ODIs against most teams (not the West Indies) and could cause an upset or two on any given day against the mightiest teams.
But we were not good enough to win tournaments.
We competed well in World Cups and Asia Cups but there were never any trophies. Not one.
That six changed everything in Pakistan cricket.
I am a witness.
My mother was a doctor in Pakistan Air Force. As she entered home when the six was hit, khaki uniform, stethoscope and all, what she saw alarmed her no end. I was hurling myself from couch to carpet and back, breath in disarray, face red, eyes unfocused and sweat all over. I had not seen this much happiness in my life and didn’t know what to do with myself. She forced me to sit, made me drink water and take deep breaths, so I could live and tell this tale.
People died that day.
But Pakistan cricket got belief.
We became contenders.
From then on, we went on a spree that would take us to number 1 in Tests and win us tournament after ODI tournament. We would enter every Test or ODI series as favorites and more often than not, end up winning it.
No surprise 3 my last 4 defining moments of Pakistan cricket came in the next 6 years.
It was also the time when cricket journalism was pure and joyful. Every month, I would run to the bookstore to buy Munir Hussain’s Akhbar-e-Watan (yes a cricket magazine) which had an inside track into Pakistan’s dressing room, and read ever cricket story over and over. Every article was an allegory on Pakistan’s cricket and every photograph a work of art. There was also “The Cricketer” whose stats section followed to track Imran and Miandad’s bowling and batting averages and even calculate them live after each game, ahead of the next edition.
It truly was a simple time. I won’t know where to start today with cricketers playing so many different formats and in so many teams.
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My Second Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – Pakistan vs India Bangalore 87
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...dia-vs-pakistan-5th-test-63456/full-scorecard
Imran had this great quality that only exceptional leaders do – he could raise the level of his team to the highest degree of their capability. He would do this by turning a series or an event into an almost holy conquest (the 1982 England series was a revenge against 100 years of colonisation, for example), announce his mission on the biggest stage to the world and then get the entire country behind him with series of interviews. It was extraordinary to live it.
In the ’80s, he set 4 big missions - beating England in England, India in India, West Indies in West Indies and Lifting the World Cup. Nothing could come in his way to stop them. He proclaimed these goals even when the series were years away and would not let go.
He even stopped Gavaskar from retiring so he could beat him in India.
Bangalore Test, after a largely insipid preceding 4 Tests edged by India, is quite a non-Pakistan victory. The fast bowlers only took 2 out of 20 wickets, Miandad made only 24 across 2 innings, no Pakistani batsman scored even a 50 and their main spinner Qadir didn’t even play. Yet somehow everyone played a part with small contributions, the two spinners Tauseef and Iqbal Qasim with big ones, Gavaskar defied on a spitting pitch till the end and it all added up to the greaTest Pakistani Test victory since Fazal’s Oval in 1954.
The difference between the two teams after an epic decade long build up was just 17 runs.
The victory parade in Lahore signalled Pakistan’s complete superiority over India in cricket after the Sharjah six, and would get as close as possible to the definition of ‘mental disintegration’ that Waugh coined years later.
It was to India’s credit that despite losing to Pakistan in bilateral and small tournaments regularly, they would still not roll over to the formidable Pakistani pace battery in the ‘88 away Test series (otherwise known as Tendulkar’s debut series) or in ICC events even then.
It was therefore a massive shock when in 1987 home World Cup, Pakistan lost to Australia in the semi-finals in Lahore – despite Imran scoring 50 and taking 3 wickets. I remember everyone walking in stunned silence the next day, cursing Wasim Jaffer for the expensive 18-run last over, Steve Waugh for the expensive 18-run last over and Javed for his slow 70-off-120 balls which was slow even for those times.
That World Cup loss took the joy out of Imran’s cricket and he announced his retirement despite 2 of his goals not achieved. The country went into a second shock and what followed was a proper pantomime with the whole nation in tears pleading with him for months to take back his retirement. Ultimately, the great savior Zia appeared like a Cheshire cat, Imran reversed his decision and eventually wrote 2 more great chapters in Pakistan’s history. It helped Zia sign off his own worldly chapter with a grin.
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My Third Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – Pakistan vs West Indies Guyana ‘88
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ies-vs-pakistan-1st-test-63481/full-scorecard
The best Test match I ever heard. Series was on radio only.
I believe that Test series to be the greaTest in my time.
West Indies were dominant since mid 70’s. They were unchallenged home AND away. You just didn’t take them on. You didn’t even talk about it.
Pakistan were the only team that dared to do so. They had skittled them out for 53 in the previous series at home, and felt at the cusp of history.
For all that, the tour started rather poorly with a spectacular 5-0 loss in the ODI series preceding the Tests. Pakistan would have taken a game or two, especially as Viv Richards missed the first part of the tour, but West Indies introduced, totally out of syllabus, an 80-foot monster called Ambrose. He terrorised Pakistan in his very first game with 4 wickets, and never looked back. Or down.
In some ways though, those ODIs were just the right preparation for the Test series. By the end of the one dayers, Pakistan knew what they were going to be up against – be it surfaces, opponents, or atmosphere.
Imran made them work hard. I remember tales of Rameez batting in the nets while bald tennis balls doused in water were hurled from mid-pitch at his head, to prepare for West Indian bumpers.
Mentally too, they were ready to fight to the last ball.
The first Test played out as they prepared.
Richards and Marshall’s absence had already opened the door for Pakistan, the batters made useful contributions in both innings, and Pakistan’s stars showed up - Imran took 11 wickets in the match, Javed scored a long-awaited Caribbean century and Qadir snared top order wickets. West Indies could not withstand the many dimensions of Pakistan’s attack - batting and bowling – and eventually lost by 9 wickets.
The result was seismic in the cricketing world. For a total cricket nerd like me, it was just inconceivable. I never did believe Imran when he had said we could beat them at their home.
The next 2 Tests were, if anything, even more incredible. In the second Test, Richards returned and scored a hundred and a 49. Marshal returned and took a 4-wicket haul. Imran took another 9 wickets in the game, Qadir took 8 and Javed scored another hundred. The last batsman survived the final 5 balls to hold on to a draw, but not before Pakistan ran a formidable 372 runs target close. In the last hour, they needed to see out 20 overs with just 2 wickets left, and yet could have won it.
The last Test went further. West Indies won by 2 wickets chasing 268 with 9th wicket pair putting on 60-odd runs. I remember that partnership. Pakistan commentators were not happy at local umpires who helped Benjamin and Dujon with 3 dubious calls against Qadir, while in the background a charged crowd was baying for their blood.
That Test match was the only cricket mission of Imran’s that I remember not finished in his time. Imran could not bowl in the final innings due to injury, which in some ways equalized Richard’s absence from the first Test.
The series was a draw but felt like a loss. Pakistan’s continued insolence against the West Indians also took them to number 1 in rankings for a brief period, not that we knew at the time. It sowed the seeds for West Indian cricket’s demise from which it has not recovered.
It is the only one of my 5 moments, where there was no parade.
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Pakistan had quite a few successful engagements after that too, including winning against England in England. The grand victory in Nehru Cup in India where we ironically defeated West Indies in the final stamped Pakistan as the dominant team of its time. It was a high-quality tournament too, played only by the best 6 teams. It became the precursor to the modern Champions Trophy as we know today. Wasim hit the winning six on the penultimate ball off Richards (who had his bowler sequence wrong). Imran was the man of the tournament for his 252 runs @63 and 6 wickets@25.
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My Fourth Defining Pakistan Cricket Moment – 1992 World Cup
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ngland-vs-pakistan-final-65156/full-scorecard
I watched the first innings at my University’s auditorium in between classes. I think Pakistan scored 50 for 2 in first 20 overs. Javed was out plumb too, but the occasion got to the ump. It looked pretty much over before it began.
Then Inzi showed up, Wasim followed, and Pakistan scored 90 in the last 10.
No one moved until the first innings finished, and by then, everyone knew we had won it.
I watched the second innings at home with family. The roars that followed those two Wasim specials would not stop for days.
While Australasia Cup changed Pakistani cricket, I believe, 92 World Cup changed World Cricket. It injected a kind of mad romance into the sport not previously associated with it. Pakistan’s route to the final was no less than a Shakespearian drama, despair and euphoria interwoven all the way to the end. Every character had a tale. Javed the top scorer for Pakistan was at first dropped. Anwar and Waqar, our most lethal batsman and bowler at the time, got inured at the eve of the event. Inzi had no form. Mushy’s place was uncertain. Ejaz and Sohail, were primarily batsmen, but were to bowl throughout the tournament. Iqbal Sikandar, who knows what he did. And Imran, our best bowler of the last decade, could only bowl medium pacers.
By mid-tournament, Pakistan were practically out, depending on every available result and even the weather, going their way.
Then Imran the leader showed up with a rallying cry, like all great leaders do, to fight like “cornered tigers.”
When everything called for tactics and patience, he unleashed the real Wasim against Australia with a complete license to kill, and in an inspired opposite move, told batsmen to preserve wickets upfront without worrying about strike rates. Then he got hold of Nusrat’s Allah Hoo, played it over and over on the way to and from the ground, and turned a down-and-out dressing room into believers.
Imran turned a makeshift team into world champions, then delivered a most terrible victory speech and never picked a bat or ball again.
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In that euphoric moment, no one could imagine our cricket, and the country itself, would fall so steep, that all the promise that day held will be forsaken in wave after wave of disaster. It makes my heart bleed.
That world cup just released something sinister for its people.
If one were ever to write Pakistan Cricket’s defining “calamitous” moments, the ’90s and 2000’s will take the giant share.
It came early after Imran’s retirement.
Players revolt, match fixing, ball tampering, drugs snorting, oath taking, backstabbing, injury faking, illegal bowling, there was no evil that we left untouched. It was accompanied by a ruinous revolving door of captains, players, selectors, and chairmen, wrapped in conspiracies and accusations.
Pakistan’s cricket history had all that before too, more than any other board, just not all at the same time and with so little shame, in full gaze of the world.
Then came Bob Woolmer’s death in the 2003 World Cup, followed by the gun attack on Sri Lankan players amidst the carnage going on all around the nation. It began Pakistan’s long exile from home matches.
These two decades should have been our golden age. After all the cricketers of that era – Inzi, Anwar, Akhtar, Waqar, Saqlain, Malik, Yousuf, Razzaq, Azhar, Afridi, Moin, Asif and of course Wasim – would walk into most line ups of today without breaking a sweat.
Certainly would replace today’s Pakistan team, man for man.
They delivered some tremendous victories in that era – England in England, Australia Tri series, India in India (Tests and ODIs), India and South Africa at home, New Zealand in New Zealand, bilateral ODI's, Regional Cups and others.
When these players were on, they would light up the cricket world.
Yet in the trophy cabinet, they have not much to show for themselves.
In Tests at home in the ’90s and early 2000’s, this team of superstars was beaten by not only England, Australia and South Africa, but also by Sri Lanka and even Zimbabwe. We also lost a home series for the first time in our history against India. The away series to Australia and South Africa were no conTests and remain so today. We also had a Test forfeiture to our name, for good measure.
In ODI World Cups, except for ’99, we didn’t reach a semi-final in World Cups once (have not done it till now.) That 1999 World Cup loss by our mightiest team ever remains one our biggest on-field tragedies (on par with the lost Sidney Test of 2010, the 2007 T20 final or that 1988 West Indies 3rd Test).
T20s became our saving grace. We have made semi-finals in 6 out of 9 World T20s and the win in 2009 against all odds, in exile, remains one of Pakistan cricket’s biggest back to the wall victories. The team played as a team under Younus, Akmal, Gul, Ajmal, Amir and Afridi sprinkled magic and Pakistan avenged their 2007 loss.
This triumph should have been in my defining moments. However, it just served to hide what was wrong with Pakistan and its cricket at the time.
These were the times where Pakistan cricketers were regularly fixing spots and matches for money.
There was a point when one could not tell if a victory was real victory, a defeat a real defeat. It not only tainted the cricketers of that era, but also corroded an entire generation that followed. Collectively, they also defiled the proud legacy of their seniors.
This dark era reached its peak when Amir, Asif and Butt were caught in a news sting accepting money for bowling deliberate no-balls. All the grotesqueness of that era is captured in that picture of Wahab, adorned in his leather jacket, wads of cash spilling out of all pockets.
While those younger than me may revel in the shiny days of that era, for me it was the beginning of my distance from Pakistan cricket.
When you don’t know if a sport is clean, it is hard to make memories from it.
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Misbah brought much needed stability to the side. Pakistan cricket owes him plenty.
Under his leadership, Pakistan went back to playing cricket. Not only that, we won or drew majority of home series (played in UAE) and did creditably in away series.
The 3-0 England demolitions at UAE were particularly satisfying. I remember sitting with maybe 500 other spectators through an excruciatingly boring four days of Test cricket in soulless Dubai and Sharjah stadiums, before wickets would fall on the 5th day.
In away series, Pakistan beat the weaker teams and lost to stronger ones. Misbah’s push ups at Lord’s in an entertaining 2-2 series was the highlight. Our most outstanding victory in that time was Misbah and Yousuf’s final game, where they finished Imran’s unfinished business of beating West Indies away, achieved in style with that Gabriel’s “why did you do that” swipe.
Pakistan also lifted the mace as the best Test team in the World in that time, first time since 1988. It was a monumental achievement, unthinkable when the match fixing event happened.
However, they. didn’t beat champion teams of the day on their turf - Australia, India or South Africa. Therefore, I have not included it in my defining moments, although it is very close.
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My 5th Defining Moment – Champions Trophy 2017
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ndia-vs-pakistan-final-1022375/full-scorecard
The 2017 Champions Trophy final victory over Kohli’s India was everything the nation needed. It finally put brought closure on the darkest chapter in Pakistan’s history, and not just that of Pakistan’s cricket.
It truly felt like the 2nd minute of ‘one minute down, next minute up’ story
It was also a Testament to the messianic chaos only Pakistan brings to cricket, that Amir was at the center of it all.
When Kohli’s wicket went down, streets got their dancing shoes again after a long long wait, this time beating to the tune of ‘dhoka dhoka’.
No matter what has transpired later in Pakistan’s cricket, it has been from the lens of cricket alone, and not outside events.
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That dreamy eyed ’80s kid, living the best days of Pakistan and its cricket, is no more.
But the flame still burns.
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. Good on ye.
