1) England in Pakistan (1969)
In 1964, South Africa were banned from competing in the Olympics and football’s World Cup; by 1968, following the D’Oliveira affair, English cricket was cajoled into conceding that apartheid was bad, and their winter tour to South Africa was cancelled. Instead the team were sent to Pakistan, where they were neither especially happy to be, nor especially welcome.
At the time of their arrival, Ayub Khan – a military dictator who became President in a coup d’état – was in trouble. All sections of society were agitating all over the country even before England arrived in Karachi; when they did, they found a dusk-till-dawn curfew. But the various wise men felt in their wisdom that the tour should continue, on the basis that it might calm things down – because, of course, sport is renowned for dampening heightened emotion. Matches were shortened to four days as a sop to the players, which did nothing to stop them serving as muster points for protestors.
Before the first Test, Lahore was beset by student demonstrations, so in the hope of quietening things Aftab Gul was picked. Earlier that year, he had become the first player to appear in a first-class game while out on bail for suspected political offences; more recently, in his capacity as a lawyer, he represented Salman Butt at the start of the spot-fixing case.
An even contest ended in a draw, after which the teams proceeded to Dhaka, then the capital of East Pakistan. Originally, the second Test was cancelled, but it was then decided that this might increase the unrest. So, England arrived to discover army and police stationed on the outskirts of the city, with rioters free to go about their business through the rest of it. Venturing a desire to go home, they were warned that their coach “would not reach the airport.”
To appease the locals this time, Pakistan selected Niaz Ahmed, an East Pakistani club-level cricketer, and perennial twelfth man. The implication was of a path to selection; the reality was that neither the government nor cricket board did anything to promote the game in the area. Another draw followed.
During the third Test at Karachi, the threat of a general strike prompted the suggestion that England might march to the ground behind the black flag of mourning – but Les Ames, the tour manager, was having no such thing. “We’ll not carry any flag, black or white,” he said. If anyone tries to prevent us getting there that will be it: we just won’t be there.”
At the start of day three, England, having won the toss and batted, were 502-7, with Alan Knott four runs shy of a maiden Test century. But then a large group stormed a gate and made for the middle, protesting not just at the political situation but Hanif Mohammad’s removal as captain. Among those trying to repel them was Tom Graveney, swiping with his bat – “They weren’t very hard, but I think they were my only decent strokes up until then,” he later said.
The batsmen raced off the pitch and the whole team hightailed it to the airport, getting themselves home that very night; little more than two weeks later, Ayub was gone. DH
2) Pakistan in England (1987)
The Pakistan cricket team encapsulate everything that is wonderful about sport. Obviously they’ve got all the boring stuff like talent, genius and skill, but at elite level that’s almost commonplace; what’s special about them is their commitment to attitude, which is why no other team scales such heights of self-destruction and self-realisation, nor performs them with such elan. And regardless of who they’re addressing – umpires, opponents, team-mates, themselves – the message is always the glorious same: up yours.
And other than India, it is England they enjoy telling most of all (apart, from, perhaps and depending, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe). This was particularly so during the 80s; it started in 1982, with the first of various umpiring controversies, and then in 1984, Ian Botham described Pakistan as “the kind of place to send your mother-in-law”. It was not well received.
So when the tourists arrived in England in the summer of 1987, they were ready for a ruck, and tauba tauba, did they have the team for it, containing, amongst others, Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, Saleem Yousuf and Abdul Qadir. Things were away before there had even been any cricket, with a request that the TCCB remove David Constant from the umpiring panel, on account of the 1982 aggravation – his terrible mistake probably cost Pakistan the series. The request was refused but news of it leaked to the press, and Constant offered to stand down following a controversial decision and subsequent row in the first Test.
That aside, not much happened – play was curtailed by rain, and in the second Test too, with schoolchildren across the land flummoxed by England’s two centurions, RT ‘Tim’ Robinson and CWJ ‘Bill’ Athey.
The next match at Headingley was notable for the debut of the New Botham™, David Capel, though such were the riches of all-round options that he soon gave way to Chris Lewis, Dermot Reeve, Craig White, Darren Gough, Dominic Cork, Mike Watkinson, Ronnie Irani, Mark Ealham, Adam Hollioake and Ben Hollioake.
But in his first Test innings, Capel top-scored with 53 out of just 136; Pakistan did not need to be asked twice. Every batsman bar one made double figures and Saleem Malik caressed his way to 99, while Neil Foster took arguably the hollowest eight-fer of all-time. England began their second innings 217 runs behind, Imran Khan took 7-40, and Pakistan won by an innings and 18 runs.
At Edgbaston, the Test pootled along on a flat track – its first innings yielded a combined total of 960 – until the afternoon session of the final day when Foster and Botham suddenly ripped through Pakistan’s middle order. This set England a target of 124 to win from 18 overs, but the bowling of Imran and Wasim left them 15 runs short. Naturally, there were accusations of time-wasting; naturally, they were accurate. “Part and parcel of the international game,” chortled Pakistan’s tour manager and joker, Haseeb Ahsan.
So in order to salvage a series draw, England needed to win the final Test at the Oval. The atmosphere was intensified by the return of Constant, and Haseeb informed the press that his side would find it hard to focus. Spirited discussions ensued when he turned down an appeal for a catch behind, prompting Haseeb to call him a “disgraceful person”, but by then it made little difference. Pakistan had already won the toss, batted, and taken sadistic, life-affirming joy in grinding England into the gristle. In their total of 708 all out – because why declare? – Mudassar Nazar scored 76, Malik 102, Khan 118, Ijaz Ahmed 69 and Yousuf 62, but the chief humiliator was Miandad, whose 260 lasted 617 minutes and 521 balls. By the end of it, Pakistan’s first series win in England was secure, a tribute to the power of up yours. DH
3) Pakistan in England (1992)
By June 1992, David Shepherd had long been a top-class international umpire. Five years previously he had been awarded an MBE for services to cricket and was well on the way to being one of the most celebrated in the modern game. His affable nature, sound judgement and little quirks (lifting one foot off the ground whenever the score reached a multiple of 111, or tying a matchstick to his finger on any Friday 13th for good luck, ensuring he was always touching wood) endeared him to players and fans alike, and in light of the increasingly tempestuous relationship between Pakistan and England, it made him an ideal candidate to officiate the third Test of Pakistan’s tour of England in 1992.
The other umpire was Roy Palmer, another West Country man and a first-class umpire since 1979, but who was making his Test debut at Old Trafford. Palmer was not the only debutant that day: Tim Munton was given his first England Test cap but failed to make any real impression with the ball – managing just one wicket for 112 as Pakistan eased to 505-9dec from their first innings. Munton, though, would make a key contribution at No10, crucially helping England to avoid the follow on alongside Ian Salisbury before Wasim Akram did for the latter. With the game heading for a draw, Devon Malcolm came in to face Akram, Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed, who had skilfully guided Pakistan to World Cup glory over England just a few months earlier.
“Tim wasn’t a very good batter and Devon was even worse,” Palmer told the North Devon Journal in 2012. “He had bowled some bouncers at the Pakistan batsmen but Javed Miandad could handle it, Devon Malcolm couldn’t handle bouncers.”
This, at least, is correct. The first bit of short stuff thrown down by Javed hit Malcolm square on the helmet. A better batsman would have swerved the chest high delivery, but Malcolm, clumsily crouching his 6ft2in frame, couldn’t. Palmer, with all the authority of a fishmonger in a butchers, ticked off Javed with a bit of finger wagging. This only served to enrage the Pakistan team, with captain Javed Miandad also objecting, arguing that his bowler was perfectly entitled to bowl one bouncer per over. The next ball, the same thing happened, the only difference being Malcolm managing to avoid being hit again. This time, it was Palmer who seemed enraged, calling a no-ball and marching down the wicket and appearing to issue an official warning. Javed was unmoved, and threw down some more chin music with his final delivery. The over finished, Palmer strode off to square leg shaking his head, seemingly relieved to have the whole business done with.
But it was what happened next that relighted the embers. “His sweater was in a loop on my coat and when I pulled it wouldn’t come out,” said Palmer, who eventually managed to free the item of clothing and offered it to Javed, along with his hat. “When I put them together and passed them to him he knocked the sweater to the floor and said I had thrown it.”
All hell broke loose. Five different Pakistani players confronted Palmer, Miandad and Javed the most animated, and a supporter even broke onto the field wielding a rolled-up newspaper before he was halted by two security guards in the outfield. Palmer did nothing but cross his arms, and stand there silently, “retaining the dignity of a patient policeman watching a family squabble,” according to Wisden.
At stumps, Palmer was given a police escort off the field, and Aaqib was fined half of his match fee (about £300) with Pakistan’s team manager Intikhab Alam also severely reprimanded for complaining to the press that Palmer had thrown the jumper at his bowler. Intikhab refused to apologise and repeated his remarks, and was fined by the ICC.
Palmer would umpire just one more Test, England’s third Ashes Test at Trent Bridge a year later, where more apparel-based controversy reigned. “Shane Warne had bowled [Mark Lathwell] a googly and he padded up and I gave it not out,” Palmer explained. “Warne went absolutely bonkers. He snatched his hat out of my hand and I wasn’t very happy with that. I thought, ‘When he comes back on and asks me to hold his hat I shall tell him where to stick it’.
“David Shepherd was a good umpire, nothing seemed to fluster him, he handled things nicely, not like myself – players could get my back up.” MB
4) England in Pakistan (1987)
When England returned to Pakistan in December 1987, the teams had – to their credit – managed to squeeze in more broiges during the World Cup. Javed Miandad, of famously delicate countenance, claimed to have been sworn at by Mike Gatting, responding to a conciliatory pat on the back with a shove to the face.
The first Test was in Lahore, where England were whacked and bad umpiring reignited the sides’ mutual antipathy. In Pakistan’s first innings, Abdul Qadir was given out stumped despite being well in his ground, and then when England batted, Gatting was adjudged lbw second ball, the umpire sending him on his way with a finger that looked more like the finger, raised almost before the ball hit the pad. “Rather hasty,” said BBC News; “you get slightly upset,” said Gatting.
More beef followed in the second dig. Chris Broad refused to leave the crease when given out caught behind – Pakistan later pressed for him to be sent home, but he escaped with a reprimand – while Graham Gooch was dismissed similarly after blatantly glancing at the ball as it passed his bat.
But it was during the second Test in Faisalabad that things really heated up. Before it begun, England protested the appointment of Shakoor Rana as umpire – “not one to avoid a quarrel if he can help it,” wrote John Woodcock in the Times of a man who even managed to fall out with the amazingly affable Jeremy Coney. Rana and Gatting had already had words during the one-day series, when England refused a request for a specialist wicket-keeping substitute, but Pakistan were happy with him and things escalated from there.
After winning the toss and batting, England soon lost Gooch, his pad to the keeper visible even through grainy footage and serving to further excite his captain. So, while Broad made a hundred, a steam-powered Gatting thrashed 79 off 81 balls, though England were still dismissed for a below-par 292.
On day two, England felt they had Ijaz Ahmed caught, and when Rana determined otherwise, Bill Athey detained the batsman in conversation, earning himself a ticking-off. In classic Sunday League style, a vexed Gatting then spoke about the umpire rather than to him, but loudly enough so that he could hear. “One rule for one, one rule for another,” he said.
Then, three deliveries from the close with Pakistan struggling at 106-5, Gatting moved David Capel up on the one from long leg – after informing the batsman. So Eddie Hemmings sidled in and Gatting signalled that Capel should stop, whereupon Rana stopped play to chastise what he deemed to be underhand behaviour. In response, he was advised that he was acting outside of his pay grade, after which further sentiments were duly exchanged. “The language employed throughout the discourse was basic,” said Wisden; “you’re a fucking cheating cunt” said Rana; and fingers were jabbed menacingly before play ended early for the day.
The next morning, Rana refused to continue without receipt of a written apology – of course, he knew this was unlikely, just as he knew that Pakistan were both one–up in the series and ill-placed in the match. This had not escaped Botham, who noted that Pakistan had done less than expected in the World Cup, when umpires were neutral.
But the problem was not solely one of umpiring. “Many believe that some white cricketers have a condescending attitude to touring in the Third World”, reported Wesley Kerr of ITN; the Muslim Chronicle’s Haroon Jadhakhan termed it a “colonial hangover”.
Eventually the Foreign Office got involved and Gatting was forced to apologise, though a further day’s play was lost, which Pakistan refused to make up. It probably cost England victory.
The third and final Test was drawn too, and at the end of the series, the TCCB topped up the fee they paid their players on account of all the grief. But shortly afterwards, Gatting was sacked as captain, officially for his liaison with a barmaid, but more likely for his liaison with Rana.
“It still rankles,” he said in 2010. “But in some ways it was good for cricket because neutral umpires came in immediately after that episode.” DH
5) World Cup final (1992)
The 1992 cricket World Cup represents the zenith of the human project. The right length, the right size and the right structure, it was also the first to include South Africa, the first to be played in coloured clothing and the first to have its own velvet-rock theme tune; this wasn’t just Oz, it was Oz.
Neil Fairbrother’s ferreting ferried England into the final, while Pakistan were propelled by Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed – and, through the semi-final, by Inzamam-ul-Haq, a relative unknown picked by Imran Khan specially for the competition.
For those of youthful and northern-hemisphere persuasion, the game was compromised by the school day; the Joy of Six found itself in an end-of-term maths exam with headphones down its sleeve, coughing out developments to a class of uninterested ignorami; 28%, now that you ask.
In front of more than 87,000 people at the MCG, Pakistan won the toss and batted, but Derek Pringle soon removed both openers. In the group game between the sides, they were skittled for 74, but in Khan and Miandad had two of the most beautifully bellicose, belligerent buggers ever to exist.
Typically, they set about doing nothing in the most confrontational, ominous manner imaginable; at the halfway point of the innings, the total was just 70. But gradually, they lifted the rate, Miandad playing through pain to sneak his usual selection of ones and twos, even with a runner; together they put on 139, which, buttressed by a thrash from Inzamam and Wasim, set England a testing but gettable 249.
But Pakistan held the advantage of momentum, almost unstoppable when paired with genius. So Wasim quickly removed Ian Botham for a duck – dubiously. “Who’s coming in next? Your mother-in-law?” asked Aamer Sohail. Aaqib Javed then did for Alec Stewart, and when Mushtaq got rid of Graham Gooch and Graeme Hick, England were 69/4 and very nearly gone.
Again, though, Neil Fairbrother brought them back into it, building a partnership of 72 with Allan Lamb, which forced Khan to bring back Wasim sooner than planned; oh, calamity! So, in he charged, haaled up to eyeballs, to offer Lamb one which jagged in then straightened and Lewis one which merely jagged in. The result was two wickets in two balls, not so much clean as filthily bowled, and the game was almost over. Then Aaqib got Fairbrother, the tail was cleaned up, and Pakistan were world champions and England were not. DH
6) World Cup group stage (2003)
There is something in our nature that keeps us obsessed with the biggest, the strongest, the fastest. It is the reason why there is a blue whale hanging in the Natural History Museum. It is the reason why football managers are still interested in signing Peter Crouch, even at the age of 35. Shoaib Akhtar’s 100.02mph (161.3km/h) delivery – the fastest ball on record – to England’s Nick Knight in a 2003 World Cup group stage match remains one of the most fascinating moments in cricket, not because it resulted in any great sporting moment but because it resulted in a human one, of how far a body could be pushed and stretched.
In the context of the match, it didn’t mean anything – Knight ably flicking the ball to square leg for a single – England went on to win the match comfortably by 112 runs, No11 Shaoib top scoring for Pakistan with 43. The footage is grainy and lasts just a split second, and even the commentators that day didn’t realise what had happened until the speedometer was projected on the big screen and a cheer erupted from the crowd.
There are plenty of other more exciting things – good and bad – that Shaoib could instead be remembered for: clean bowling Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar in 1999 in Kolkata with two successive yorkers; ball-tampering, performance-enhancing drugs, whacking his team-mate Mohammad Asif with a bat in the Pakistan dressing room, bringing the England order down to earth in December 2005 after their famous Ashes triumph with a combination of frightening pace and a devilish slower ball, missing the 2009 World Twenty20 in England due to a case of genital viral warts. Shaoib himself described his career in his autobiography as “a series of embarrassing incidents strung together by me telling people about those embarrassing incidents.” Indeed, Shaoib’s greatest battles did not come against England, India or any other side, but with himself. How far could he push himself? On that day in 2003, he went further than anybody had ever gone before, or since.
“I wanted to do it. I said that before the match to my coach and manager that I was going to do it in my second over,” Shaoib remarked during the interval that day. “When I saw the 158 (km/h), I said, okay this is the time, just cross the barrier, finish it for the rest of my life”. MB
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