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Magazine
The original little master
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
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The phrase `The Little Master' is usually associated with Sunil Gavaskar. But there was one other before him.
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Hanif Mohammed ... lived and breathed cricket.
A MERE 16 families are
said to control Pakistan's
economy, a textbook
case of
exploitative oligopoly.
But that might seem
like egalitarian socialism when
compared with the state of Pakistan
cricket, which for many years appeared
to be run by two households
only. One of these was plebeian, as
befitting their base, the trading port
of Karachi. The other was feudal,
and lived in the town of kings, soldiers,
and poets: Lahore. In fact a
lyrical sociologist (were there such
an animal) could use the story of
these two families to write a larger
social history of the nation. Punjab
versus Sindh, land versus commerce,
indigenous Pakistani versus
imported Mohajir. This divergence
in class and cultural origin was
deeply marked in the men from
these two homes: in their dress, in
their deportment, in how they
played the game, and in how they
viewed the enemy.
The Second Family of Pakistan
cricket was the Khans of Lahore.
The First Family was the Mohammeds
of Karachi, but before that of
the princely state of Junagadh. As a
business house they were a closely
held partnership, five brothers who
worked and schemed together. Not
all the siblings, however, had equal
shares in the family enterprise. This
was a strictly modern business, one
indication being that it was not the
first-born son who controlled the
strings. Merit, it seems, was what
counted most of all. Thus it was
that the two elder and the two
younger brothers deferred to the
one who lay between. He was the
unquestioned Master, albeit a ''little''
one.
Hanif Mohammed was born in
1935, moving to Pakistan when he
was 12. By then his game had already
been elaborated in his native
Junagadh. The
story is told of
how Hanif
would bat on
after sundown,
the unwilling
bowlers shifting
the game
from a side
street to the
main one, to
play on under
one of
the three lighted
lamp posts
that the Nawab
allowed his
subjects. After
they shifted to
Karachi, the
boy came under
the tutelage
of
Jaoomal
Naoomal, a
skilled allrounder
who had
appeared
in the first
Indian
Test
eleven, at Lord's in 1932. Naoomal
spied in the lad a future Test player.
So as to keep up his confidence,
and prepare him for Test matches
played over 30 hours, he instructed
the umpires of Karachi (most of
them his pupils, too) never to adjudge
Hanif out leg-before-wicket.
Hanif was not long out of short
pants before he returned to India,
with Abdul Kardar's team of 1952.
Also in the side was his eldest
brother, Wazir, an able middle order
batsman and the maker of two
Test hundreds. (The brother next in
age to Wazir,
Raees, was
once twelfth
man for Pakistan.)
From then
until he retired
in 1970
it was a case of
''if you get Hanif
out, you win''. The
uncertain abilities of
those who followed him
placed a dreadful burden,
and like Sunil
Gavaskar, Hanif
had to put his
strokes in the
bank locker for
days on end.
He became,
only partly
out of
choice, the
best defensive batsman in
world cricket. In this he was,
indeed, a key inspiration to the
aforementioned Sunil. As a young
boy, Gavaskar was told by his coach
and early mentor, Vasu Paranjype,
that ''when Hanif played his forward
defensive in the Brabourne
Stadium you could hear the sound
(of the ball hitting the middle of the
bat) as far away as Churchgate
Station.''
Paranjype would have had in
mind the Test played in Bombay in
the first week of December, 1960,
when Hanif batted for almost two
days before being out, run out, for
160. Four years prior to that innings,
Hanif was settling in for the
distance on the other side of the
globe, at the Kensington Oval in
Barbados. In this Test the West Indies
scored 579, batting first, and
dismissed Pakistan for 106, Roy Gilchrist
taking four for 32. Following
on, Hanif had to carry his teammates
through the last three days of
the Test.
That gifted wicket-keeper-batsman,
Imtiaz Ahmed, helped, scoring
91 in an opening partnership of
152. Two days still remained. Alimuddin,
with 37, Saeed Ahmed,
with 65, and brother Wazir, with 35,
each stayed an hour or two. Watching
the play on this fourth day, and
from a palm tree high above square
leg, were a group of Bajan boys.
As the afternoon sun rose higher
one of them could no longer stand
it. Delirious from the heat, from
Hanif's relentless thook thook and
doubtless from a steady intake of
palm wine, the boy fell off the tree
and landed on his head some 40
feet below. He was taken to hospital,
recovering consciousness 24
hours later. Inevitably his
first words were: ''Is Hanif
still batting?'' The answer,
alas, was that he was.
In this match-saving
marathon Hanif scored 337
runs in 970 minutes. It remains
the longest innings in
first-class cricket, and we may reckon
it one of the bravest. I am not a
statistical man, but some of the
bowling figures must be quoted:
Gilchrist, 41-5-121-1; E. Atkinson,
49-5-136-2; Smith, 61-30-93-1; Valentine,
39-8-109-2; D. Atkinson, 62-
35-61-1; Sobers, 57-25-94-1. In desperation
the West Indians even
called upon Clyde Walcott to bowl
10 overs.
Hanif lived and breathed cricket,
all sides of it. He is remembered
now only as a batsman, but on his
was sharp in the field, never more
so than in the last moments of the
1954 Oval Test, won by Pakistan by
24 runs. This is known, justly, as
Fazal Mahmood's match, for it was
the great seam bowler's six wickets
in each innings which set up the
victory.
But the final, decisive blow came
from the right hand of Hanif. England's
last-wicket pair had added
20 of the 45 runs that remained,
and Fazal was tiring. The partnership
was finally broken by a underhand
throw from Hanif at cover
point, disturbing the wickets from
side-on.
The Little Master enjoyed a bowl,
too. When, a mere five weeks after
Hanif's Barbados marathon of December
1957, Sobers reached 360
not out in the Jamaica Test, Hanif
was brought on to try his right-arm
spin.
The second or third ball went for
four, and Sobers had equalled Len
Hutton's world record. Now Hanif
decided to bowl left-arm. It was a
lovely piece of whimsy, and the first
two balls did land on a perfect
length. But of course Sobers got the
additional run in the end.
For a long time Sobers held the
record for the highest score by a
batsman in a Test, and Hanif the
record for the highest score in a
first-class match. This was his 499
for Karachi against Bahawalpur in
1958, a knock which ended when
he was run out going for his five
hundredth run in the last over of
the day.
Some years later the Pakistani
cricket team toured Australia.
When they played South Australia
at Adelaide, Sir Donald Bradman
walked into their dressing room
and asked to meet the man who
had broken his record score of 452.
Hanif got up, and apologetically
said, ''Sir, you will always be the
greatest.'' The Don looked him up
and down and replied, shaking his
head: ''So you are the fellow. I always
thought that the batsman
who broke my record would be six
feet two inches tall. But you are
shorter than me!''
The writer is the editor of The Picador Book of Cricket.
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