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what the hell? He could've been an all time great. Beyond Saqlain for sure by looking at those stats. Why wasn't he played more often. Did we just make a huge blow on our cricket history by not playing him?
He played 19 Tests in 7 years in a period when SRL wasn’t a Test team and PAK didn’t play SAF & IND (no cricket between 1961-1978) - I don’t think PAK played too many Tests that time either. There was no series against WIN also (can’t recall anything between 1958 to 1974), hardly any series against AUS (after that Karachi Test, I think, PAK toured AUS for 1 Test in 1964, then 1972 for three Tests & nothing at home before 1978).
So, it was basically just two teams NZ & ENG.... 3 Tests/year wasn’t that bad actually - he probably didn’t tour to Australia in 1972 either. The lack of Test matches for PCT was always an issue - PCB never been a board that was interested to play Test cricket & it was not financial always - at least not in 1960s, when Pakistan’s economic indexes were better than India. Even then, India kept playing at least WIN in almost every alternative year for 3-5 Tests, PAK kept skipping Test cricket at every opportunity & excuse, which resulted a massive decline in quality from the standards of initial decade of 1950s.
In fact PAK played lot, lot more Tests in its first 10 years than the next 10, which encompasses Sajjad’s career. 3 series against India of 5 Tests each, last one in 1961; two tours of England for 9 Tests, I think 8 Tests against WIN in two series, two tours by Aussies in PAK, at least 2 series against KIWIS.... all between 1952-61.....
