Pakistan's sad exit from the quarterfinal stage of the World Cup has been followed by a mortifying whitewash at the hands of the hosts, in the limited-overs wing of the Bangladesh tour. The Bengalis have registered their first ever ODI series win, first ever T20I win, and their first ever draw against Pakistan so far on the seemingly never-ending tour.
With one Test still to be played and Pakistan’s miserable fortunes this far, the probability of Bangladesh to register their first Test win against Pakistan is quite high.
While the onus is certainly on the players and the team management, there is a larger picture which has gone relatively unseen for quite a while now. And it is high time we stepped back and took stock of the situation to improve the affairs of the game we love.
Certainly, the scummy domestic structure is to be blamed, but even before that, comes the more important and currently even scummier school and college-level cricket, which feeds the First-Class and List-A teams.
See: Pakistan cricket at lowest point in international history: Ramiz Raja
Pakistan cricket got off to a flying start. Its first Test win came on the very first Test tour, against India at Lucknow. They soon announced themselves as a formidable cricket force under their first Test captain, Abdul Hafeez Kardar.
Nazar Mohammad’s 124 in 515 minutes and Fazal Mahmood’s 12/94 (courtesy scorching leg-cutters) secured Pakistan an innings and 43-run Test win over arch-rivals India. This made Pakistan only the second Test side to record a first Test win in their second Test, after England.
Just two years after the historic Lucknow Test came the Oval Test, the last of the four Tests on the English tour. Pakistan were already one down in the series and on many occasions were outplayed by the Englishmen. But Fazal Mahmood’s 12/99 sufficed to take Pakistan home as they beat England by 24 runs.
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Pakistan were 7 down for 51 before Kardar’s small, yet, fruitful partnerships with the tail took them to 133. England were all-out for 130 as Fazal Mahmood and Mahmood Hussain ripped through English batting, taking six and four scalps respectively.
In the second innings, Pakistan scored only 164. And Fazal Mahmood, despite England’s brilliant start of 109-2, led Pakistan to the first Test win on the English soil in what was one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of Test cricket.
It is astonishing that such brilliance came from a newborn nation of cricketers. There was no formal domestic system till the '70s. But school/university cricket and the First-Class structure was strong enough at the time of Partition, and so cricket continued to thrive for the next two decades.
Readers from Lahore may have heard of the famous Islamia College and Government College cricket rivalry from their elders. Pakistan’s first Test squad, which toured India in 1952, contained 11 players from these two colleges out of the total of 18. Players on their return were often quoted by the newspapers telling that they felt the Test cricket to be easier than the Islamia-Government college cricket. Such was the quality and class of college cricket of those days.
School cricket in Lahore also flourished for a while. The great Islamic Model and Model High School rivalry used to be a hot topic from chai dhabaas to office cafeterias. Nazar Mohammad, Pakistan’s first Test centurion and the First Pakistani to face the first Test delivery, was a product of the rivalry. Like Nazar, Fazal Mahmood, the star of the Lucknow and the Oval Tests, was also from Islamia College.
Also read: PCB, domestic structure in need of major overhaul: Ehsan Mani
The school and college cricket helped scouts immensely in their lookout for young talent.
Talented players were picked up from schools and colleges and put into BCCP’s (Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan) training camps alongside legendary Test cricketers of the time. Soon, they represented Pakistan at the Test level. One person who came out of such a process was the little master, Hanif Mohammad.
In Karachi, school cricket’s famous Ruby Shield was dominated by BVS, Saint Patricks, and Sindh Madrassah. Hanif Mohammad played for Sindh Madrassah and was soon picked by Kardar, (according to some) at the age of 14.
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The extraordinary Hanif used to open, keep stumps and could bowl with either arm. His agility in the field made him particularly stand out. He was a compact cricketer by his early teens, courtesy the competitive school cricket.
It would take a great deal of time to write down all of his performances, but two of his greatest innings ever were: 337 against West Indies to save Pakistan from a humiliating Test defeat, and 499 in a First-Class game.
Hanif stayed on the wicket for more than 16 hours to save Pakistan from first-innings 473 runs deficit and drew the game at Bridgetown, Barbados in 1957-58. In the effort, he registered the longest innings record of the time, which stayed intact for the next 40 years.
A year after this glorious innings, Hanif broke Don Bradman’s record of the highest First-Class innings and scored 499 before getting run out, a record which would stay intact for the next 35 years.
Such was the class of the players on whom our Test team rode to various glories in the early years of cricket.
Over the years, school and college cricket began dying out. And today, cricket, at this level, has vanished altogether; the Fazal Mahmoods, the Nazar Mohammads, the Hanif Mohammads of the time are going unnoticed and wasted, since there is no mechanism to detect talent at the early stage.
Pakistan’s cricket has gone from poor to worse. The very foundations are crumbling. To revive its cricket and ensure the survival of Pakistan in the international competitive cricket, the country will have to revive cricket at the school and college level.