Re: Hats off to PCB/ Goodbye Inzi
Saad Shafqat is the able son of Pakistan's famous and known Cardiologist Prof.Hamid Shafqat.
Saad, by profession, is a Doctor (Neurologist) at the AKU Hospital, karachi.. having studied at the same University-and having pursued higher studies at Boston--to return to Pakistan in 2000.
On a more personal note...Saad is the younger brother of my younger brother Murad's (Islamabad's famous Archietect) wife...also a Doctor herself.
I encouraged Saad to write Javed Miandad's biography---which was finally accomplished and printed by the Oxford University Press-Pakistan. Saad was kind to mention a few lines about me in the book's preface.
Later--I encouraged him to go for Inzy's biography. We met Inzy and held two sessions and Inzy had promised quality time upon return from WC-07 at West Indies...but all went bereft and Inzy lost heart. We are still trying to put sense in him to go for it.....and hopefully...I expect to persuade him..when he visits Karachi by mid-Nov for opening of his brother's Golf Course..at DHA Country Club.......
Meanwhile, enjoy the appended rticle by Saad..published in DAWN today.
**When a great cricketer leaves the crease
By Saad Shafqat
WHEN a great cricketer leaves the crease for the last and final time, he unleashes an avalanche of memories in your head. Your mind goes back to any of 17 centuries that brought victory for Pakistan, and even to the remaining eight that did not.
**
*You think of the triple-hundred mercilessly belted around Gaddafi Stadium against New Zealand, or the fighting 114 & 85 at Old Trafford that squared the series against England, or the imperious 184 at Bangalore that defeated the old rivals. Take your pick, for there is something here to satisfy fans of every stripe. *
*As the reverie continues, you recall the 138 not out in crumbling circumstances at Multan that saved national honour by the razor-thin margin of one wicket, and the textbook 148 at Lord’s, and how can you not remember the tenacious 2nd innings 118 in a losing cause at Hobart. It’s a long list. *
*Or perhaps your mind, having had its fill of splendid Test hundreds, goes back instead to a cold, windswept afternoon at Auckland. The year is 1992 and the event is the World Cup semifinal. Both openers and the heart of the middle order are gone. The asking rate has climbed to 8.5 an over and the team is still 123 adrift. A hero is needed, and he steps in. But for him, *
*Pakistan would still be looking for their first World Cup title. *
*This hero was born in 1970 in Multan, the city of saints and mystics. At the age of 15 he made his first-class debut, playing for his hometown. In 1988, he joined United Bank and began making impressive scores that brought him to national attention. The story goes that in the summer of 1991 Inzamam-ul-Haq was invited to a pre-season training camp with the national team. He played the regular bowlers with ease and confidence. *
*Then Waqar Younis was called in. Unfazed, Inzamam stared him down with some copybook forward defen sives, and then lifted two shots off his hips that sailed out of the ground. *
*Imran Khan thought he had seen another Viv Richards and Javed Miandad thought he had finally seen a successor, and neither was too far wrong. In his fifth ODI match, Inzamam made his first international century — 101 against Sri Lanka — prompting Miandad to give him a cash award of a thousand rupees, which Inzamam put aside as a good luck charm. A few months later came the symbolic partnership in the World Cup semi-final in which Inzamam took over the batting anchor’s mantle. It fit him perfectly, and there was no looking back. *
*Inzamam’s retirement marks the end of one of the greatest cricket careers from Pakistan. He has made more ODI runs, notched more Test hundreds, scored more Test and ODI fifties, and been on the winning side in a Test match more often, than any other Pakistani. And with 8830 Test runs (at 49.60), he has finished just 2 shy of the Pakistan record. These credentials place him alongside the likes of Hanif Mohammad and Miandad in *
*Pakistan’s batting hall of fame. *
*Much has been written on Inzamam, and the recurring remark that observers have repeatedly made is how deceptive he looked. Peter Roebuck put it most memorably when he wrote that Inzamam scores an awful lot of runs for someone who supposedly lets the world wander by. Bowlers marveled at how much time he had to play his shots, and captains struggled to place the right field. *
*If Inzamam was an unlikely batting legend, he was an even less likely revolutionary. Yet he pulled that one off too. He showed principled defiance against an outrageous umpiring misjudgment at The Oval last year, becoming the first captain in 130 years of Test history to forfeit a Test match — an incident that carries far-reaching implications for how cricketing decisions are adjudicated. It all happened in the space of a few minutes, yet it could end up being one of Inzamam’s key legacies. When you start your career becoming the subject of folklore, there is a good chance you will end it comfortably perched somewhere in the pantheon. It is sometimes said of Inzamam that had he done more with the talent he was given, he would have been spoken of in the same breath as Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara, and Sachin Tendulkar. It is a tough comment, though it is not so much a criticism of Inzamam as a celebration of his enormous gifts. *
*All the same, there are things Inzamam might do if he had a chance to go through his career once again. He might work harder at fitness, be more agile in the field, run more efficiently between the wickets converting ones into twos, and be a more animated captain always ready with a Plan B. Yet perhaps if he did all that, he wouldn’t be Inzamam, one of cricket’s colourful characters. *
And so it is when an great cricketer leaves the crease. He has finally played out his innings and he has picked up his bat and walked off the field for the last time. You can be sure his heart is sad and his eyes are moist. There is little with which to console his grief except the bittersweet fact that his are not the only eyes that are moist.
-end