Shadows Across the Playing Field

by Shashi Tharoor

  The tedium of the Test matches mirrored the political and diplomatic stalemate between the two countries over Kashmir. Even while the series was going on, President Ayub Khan was making speeches promising the ‘liberation’ of Kashmir. Less than four years later, he made a stab at it, launching a pre-meditated military assault on Indian positions in September 1965 that triggered a 21-day war which, among other things, put paid to any talk of reviving cricketing relations. At the peace talks that followed in Tashkent, India gave back to Pakistan territory it had captured in the conflict, but peace lasted only another six years before war followed again, this time resulting in the break-up of Pakistan and the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh out of the ruins of the former East Pakistan. The wars of 1965 and 1971 had ended more decisively than the cricket series between the two countries, but they had also made the very idea of cricket tours between them completely implausible.

  Indian and Pakistani cricketers continued to play against and alongside each other on neutral ground, but not as part of their national teams. The English county championship featured a number of players from both countries in the 1970s, and when South Africa’s tour of Australia in 1971-72 was cancelled over Apartheid and a ‘Rest of the World’ team toured Down Under instead, three Indians and three Pakistanis played together for the Rest of the World even while their two countries were at war. (Two of them, Sunil Gavaskar and Zaheer Abbas, even shared a room on the tour.) That series created one awkward controversy, however, when an Australian journalist reported that Gavaskar, asked about his views on the war, allegedly replied ‘How do you spell conscientious objector?’ The publication of the story in India was followed by a frosty denial by Gavaskar, who declared that the exchange had never occurred, that as a patriotic Indian he fully supported his country’s war effort, and that as a graduate of Bombay University he was perfectly capable of spelling ‘conscientious objector’ if he had been minded to do so.

  In 1976, Pakistan invited the recently retired former Indian captain, Ajit Wadekar, to captain a World XI in exhibition matches there. But it was only in 1978, seven years after the war, that an Indian cricket team was finally able to return the last Pakistani visit of eighteen years previously. The Indian team, under the colourful and mercurial Bishen Singh Bedi, inaugurated a new phase in the cricketing contest between the two countries, one that would no longer be marked by tedious draws but would instead feature the excitement and drama of decisive combat.

  Fire and Brimstone

  The Indian skipper had a friend as his counterpart: the Pakistani captain, Mushtaq Mohammad, was a teammate of Bedi’s at Northamptonshire. Diplomacy was considered an essential part of the team’s mandate, a concern exemplified by the Indians’ choice of manager – the erstwhile Maharaja of Baroda, Fatehsinghrao Gaekwad. Lala Amarnath, Lahore’s ‘home-town’ boy, was also invited back by Pakistan TV to join its commentary team for the tour. A conscious decision had been made by the new Pakistani military ruler, General Zia-ul-Haq, to improve relations with India (where a new Janata Party government had come to power, defeating Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party in the elections of 1977). Sport, notably cricket, was to be a key instrument in this exercise.

  Judged by that yardstick, the tour can only be said to have achieved mixed results. The Indians’ frustration with the Pakistani umpiring frequently bubbled up to the surface, and in one episode an altercation between the egregiously biased umpire Shakoor Rana and the Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar actually delayed the start of the final day’s play in the first Test by 11 minutes. Few observers doubted that Pakistan were altogether the stronger side, but many also concluded that the Indians were too often denied the possibility of giving the best possible account of themselves by motivated umpiring.

  The cricket itself had its moments. The tour began placidly enough, with the Indians using their first couple of first-class matches essentially for batting practice. The first one-day international saw India squeezing home by 4 runs in a 40-over match, thanks to a sterling all-round performance by Mohinder Amarnath and an attractive debut by his brother Surinder. India were crushed in the second ODI, their meagre total of 79 being overhauled with 23 overs to spare. The first test was eagerly awaited by the publics on both sides of the now-largely impermeable border. The curator at Faisalabad prepared a bland, lifeless pitch, leading to the bowler-sympathetic wisecrack that ‘there is bad, very bad, and Faisalabad’. The batsmen on both sides made hay, with four centuries and three other scores above 80. Zaheer Abbas, who had never before made a hundred in Pakistan, battered the Indian attack for 176 and 96; Miandad, Asif and Viswanath got big hundreds too (the Indians had barely begun their second innings when the match ended, or there would certainly have been one or two more centurions from their side as well). The Indians were convinced they had got Javed Miandad out lbw several times in the course of his 154 not out, but neither umpire could be moved to uphold an appeal. The Indian all-rounder Kapil Dev made an unmemorable debut in this, the thirteenth successive draw between the two countries.

  The tourists then beat a strong Combined Universities side by 4 wickets, despite a teenage spinner, Amin Lakhani, taking a hat-trick in each innings (and twelve wickets in the match). Before the second Test, the Pakistani captain urged the Lahore curators to prepare a ‘result-oriented’ pitch, and Mushtaq got his wish, a greentop. India were put into bat and sent packing for 199 by a pair of local pacemen, Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz, Dilip Vengsarkar standing alone amongst the ruins with 72. Zaheer scored a majestic 235 not out in the Pakistani reply of 539 for 6 declared, taking the sword to the famed (but now over-the-hill) Indian spin trio of Bedi, Chandrashekhar and Prasanna with fluent elegance. India began a spirited reply, Gavaskar and Chauhan putting on 192 in their opening partnership, until each was given out (for 97 and 93, respectively) by umpiring decisions that defied belief, Chauhan’s caught-behind a particularly outrageous travesty. Half-centuries by Surinder Amarnath and Viswanath, and a spirited 43 by Kapil Dev, took India to 465, Pakistan reaching their eventual target of 126 in a hundred minutes with eight wickets to spare. To the Indian bowlers’ credit, they refused to indulge in time-wasting tactics, bowling 21 overs in those hundred minutes. Zaheer sealed the win with a six.

  Pakistan erupted in a delirium of joy. A national holiday was declared; it was almost as if the results of the wars on the battlefield had been reversed on the cricket pitch. This was also the first India-Pakistan series to be extensively televised, so the nation as a whole had been able to see the match and to participate, as it were, first hand in the victory. The Indians, under instructions to behave, decided not to make more of the umpiring decisions that had dismissed their openers in the midst of their courageous fightback, but they left the second Test convinced they were facing thirteen opponents, not eleven.

  Worse was to follow in the third ODI. After dismissing Pakistan for 205, India were coasting to victory at 183 for 2 in the 37th over, when Sarfraz Nawaz sent down a succession of four short pitched deliveries, all deliberately out of reach of the batsmen, and none called wide by the Pakistani umpire. The tactic was obvious: Pakistan would win the match by hook or by crook. A furious Bishen Bedi called his batsmen off the pitch, conceding the match in protest. He had made his point against the unsportsmanlike bowling tactics of Pakistan, but in the process he also conceded the one-day series, which India would otherwise have won 2-1.

  India’s pacemen, for a change, then bowled the tourists to victory over Punjab, and their batsmen made runs in a draw against Sindh, but the third test at Karachi provided the sternest examination of their mettle. One Indian batsman passed with flying colours – Sunil Gavaskar, who scored a century in each innings, resolutely denying the umpires any opportunity to give him out. Despite his 111 and 137, and a sterling all-round effort by the young Kapil Dev, who took four wickets and scored 93 runs, Pakistan won by eight wickets, thanks to the irrepressible Javed Miandad, who led a first- innings rearguard action, scoring 100 at number six
in the company of Mushtaq, Imran and the tail, and then blitzed a rapid 62 not out as Pakistan chased its second-innings target of 164 in 25 overs. Bedi placed his fielders on the boundary but had no answer to Javed, Asif and finally Imran, who hit him for 19 runs in a decisive over as Pakistan cantered to victory.

  The decisive result, and the entertaining cricket on display, did a great deal to ignite enthusiasm for the sport in Pakistan. After so many dull, pointless draws, the Pakistani public discovered how exciting cricket could be, and the extent to which it could compensate for other national deficiencies. The country had a potent pace attack in Imran and Sarfraz, two of the world’s best batsmen in Zaheer and Miandad, one of the world’s best wicketkeepers in Wasim Bari and a trio of world-class all-rounders in Mushtaq Mohammad, Asif Iqbal and Mudassar Nazar (with others like Majid Khan and Wasim Raja in reserve). Suddenly cricket seemed to open the door to national salvation: it was an area of excellence in which Pakistan could teach its giant, militarily superior neighbour a thing or two.

  This was all very well, and entirely legitimate, but Pakistan’s triumph was nonetheless marred, in Indian eyes, by two failings: the atrocious umpiring, and the bowlers’ penchant for unleashing short-pitched bouncers, often four times an over, unchecked by the umpires, against defenceless batsmen (in those pre-helmeted days). The graceless Sarfraz Nawaz was a particular offender. When Mohinder Amarnath, laid low by an Imran bouncer in the second test, courageously returned from hospital to resume his innings, he was immediately greeted by another Sarfraz bouncer directed at his unprotected head. This series, more than any other, contributed to the welcome revision of the laws governing the frequency with which bouncers may legitimately be employed in Tests and ODIs, as well as hastening the introduction of protective gear for batsmen.

  A footnote to the legacy of the revived Indo-Pakistani cricket rivalry lay in the impetus this series provided for Urdu cricket commentary on radio and television. Whereas India had already experimented with alternate Hindi and English commentary, cricket in Pakistan had traditionally been the preserve of an Anglophone elite. The existence of a vast Urdu-speaking audience, and the encouragement of the Urdu-speaking dictator, Zia-ul-Haq, led to Urdu finally coming into its own as a language of cricket commentary in Pakistan.

  But the overall balance-sheet stood impressively in favour of Pakistan. Zaheer had made 583 runs in his five innings; Javed Miandad had added a couple of centuries, and both Mushtaq and Asif had batted well enough to indicate that had they been placed higher up in the order, they would not have been found wanting. Though the pitches had been largely unresponsive to pace, Sarfraz and Imran had taken 17 and 14 wickets, respectively; India, on the other hand, had never once managed to take all ten Pakistani wickets in an innings.

  Revenge is Sweet

  A wag joked that when the Pakistani team made a return visit across the border the following year, the Indian umpires could have their turn. In the event, they did not need to: the all-conquering Pakistanis of 1978-79 imploded abjectly in India in 1979-80. This time not only was Gavaskar, newly promoted to the captaincy, on song; Kapil Dev, the young fast-bowling all-rounder who had been blooded in Pakistan, came into his own at 20. They faced a Pakistani team under a new captain, Asif Iqbal, who spent much of his time trying to fend off the over-enthusiastic welcomes of Indians who greeted him as having returned ‘home’, an identification he was anxious to avoid even as he paid respects to his uncle Ghulam Ahmed and other relatives in Hyderabad. Zaheer, who had averaged 194 in the previous series against India, descended to earth with a thud, faring so poorly that, averaging 19, he was actually dropped from the team for the final test. Mushtaq had retired; Majid had a poor tour; Imran broke down. With the sole exceptions of the rising star, Miandad, the middle-order bat Wasim Raja, the unsung paceman Sikander Bakht and, in only one match, the opener Mudassar, the rest of the touring party was a shambles.

  The Pakistanis were also probably over-confident after their success the previous winter, and insufficiently conscious of the extent to which home pitches would turn the tables in the Indians’ favour. They missed the warning signs before the first test, only managing a draw against one of India’s weakest zonal teams, Central Zone, and being prevented by the weather from doing much with their second match, against a strong select side. The first Test, in Bangalore, was a high-scoring draw, Mudassar compiling a laboured century, five batsmen getting to half centuries and three others making 40 or more, in a Test with only two completed innings, drearily reminiscent of all the Indo-Pak stalemates of yore. After an undistinguished draw against North Zone at Amritsar, from which the Pakistanis were able to learn nothing, the two sides repaired to Delhi for the second test, where Wasim Raja’s 97 took Pakistan to 273 before Sikander Bakht’s career-best 8 for 69 reduced India to 126 all out. Kapil Dev then followed his first innings 5 for 58 with 4 for 63 as India dismissed Pakistan for 242 (Wasim 61), leaving the home side with a target of 390 in the fourth innings to win the match. This they very nearly did, Vengsarkar’s 146 not out blazing the way to 364 for 6 when time ran out. The psychological ascendancy was clearly India’s. By the end of the match, the Pakistanis were limping in the field; Imran had bowed out after bowling only one over in India’s second innings, and only Sikander Bakht, with three wickets in 38 overs, pulled his weight amongst the bowlers.

  There was talk of recalling the omitted Sarfraz from Pakistan, but Asif persisted in the belief that Imran would recover in time for the third test at Bombay. Majid and Zaheer got runs against West Zone at Pune, though their centuries had to be seen in the context of a West Zone riposte of 344 for 3 declared, with batsmen on the fringes of Test selection, like Anshuman Gaekwad, Ghulam Parkar and Sandeep Patil, toying with the Pakistani attack. When the third Test was played, the Indians won a low-scoring match by 131 runs, despite a ten-wicket haul for the Pakistani left-arm spinner Iqbal Qasim (who opened the bowling with the hard-working Sikander Bakht in the second innings, Imran having broken down again). Zaheer was clean bowled in both innings, for 2 and 11, and only Javed, with 64 in the second innings, looked the part as Pakistan never seemed remotely capable of chasing 322 to win.

  The fourth Test followed immediately at Kanpur. The curator appeared to have been following Mushtaq’s instructions from Lahore the previous winter, since he provided a grassy pitch on which India were skittled out for 162 (after having been reduced by the pacy Sikander Bakht to 69 for 8 at one stage). Pakistan’s reply of 249 (Wasim 97 not out) was then dampened by unseasonable rain that prematurely ended the Test, but not before India had made a convincing 193 for 2 the second time around to wrest the psychological advantage back again.

  The tourists then enjoyed a misleading outing against another weak zonal side, crushing a hapless East Zone by an innings and 219 runs. This may well have bred some Pakistani complacency going into the fifth test, in Madras, which the Indians won comprehensively, by ten wickets. None of the vaunted Pakistani batsmen could get going, and those who did (notably Javed, with 45 and 52) failed to get past the 50s. In contrast, India’s 430 was studded with a magnificent 166 by Gavaskar and an exhilarating 84 by Kapil Dev, who added bowling figures of 4 for 90 and 7 for 56 in one of the great allround displays of all time. The newly-recovered Imran did take a 5-wicket haul in the first innings (but for an expensive 114 runs, with Sikander going for 1-105). India reached their fourth-innings target of 76 without loss, in a comfortable 18 overs.

  This was, however, a six-Test series, and there was to be no rest for the Pakistanis. After drawing with a strong South Zone team, they proceeded to Calcutta, finally giving a debut to their most successful batsman of the tour, their reserve wicketkeeper Taslim Arif, whose high scores against the zonal sides justified his selection as an opener, at Mudassar’s expense. Zaheer was also omitted, and Asif used a challenging declaration (after Taslim Arif had fallen for 90 on debut) to try and force a result. Chasing 265 in a possible 70 overs, however, Asif, on 15, slipped and fell and was run out, a potent meta
phor for the debacle of the tour as a whole. The run chase was abandoned, and Pakistan returned home, its collective tail between its legs, vanquished 2-0.

  The major difference between the two sides was probably the performance of the star all-rounders: whereas Imran, beset by injury, failed to make a real mark for Pakistan, Kapil took 32 wickets and struck useful runs. The Indian selectors managed to keep faith with a young team, using only twelve players in the six Test matches even while blooding new players like Sandeep Patil, Roger Binny and Yashpal Sharma.

  The Pakistanis, on the other hand, seemed quite unable to cope with the demands of an exacting tour. Both good and bad developments threw them off their stride: on the negative side of the ledger, the umpiring, though hardly as bad as they themselves inflicted on visitors, irritated them greatly, and on the positive side, the social attractions of Indian hospitality distracted them from their on-field purposes. The tourists, unlike their Indian counterparts in Pakistan, complained publicly about the umpiring and the doctoring of pitches to favour the local team, which cost them goodwill without materially aiding their performances; at one point they even threatened to call off the tour, a silly suggestion that they should have known would have been rejected out of hand in their own capital. India, which a year earlier had proved completely unable to bowl out the Pakistani side, did so seven times out of eleven attempts, twice for less than 200 runs (and never for more than 300). Only two Pakistani batsmen (Javed and Wasim) averaged above 30. It was a comprehensive failure.

  The tour put paid to the career of Pakistani captain Asif Iqbal. He had lost a great deal of weight, began taking tranquillizers and decided he could not handle the strain, announcing his retirement as soon as he got home. Carrying Pakistan’s national pride on one’s shoulders at a time of stress is never easy; doing it while losing to India at cricket is impossible.