Their Highest was also Against Us
LET us not jump to conclusions. Let us not send premature congratulatory messages to the Pakistan side. There are two Test matches to go and let us remember that if the West Indies have scored their lowest-ever total against us, their highest (790 for three declared, Sobers 366 not out, Hunte 240) was also made against Pakistan.
Let us go back in history twenty-eight years ago, the West Indies lost the series 2-1 to Pakistan . In Karachi and Dhaka , they lost by 10 wickets and 41 runs on matting wickets. But they won the final Test in Lahore by an innings and 156 runs on a turf wicket.
The world has seen no greater pace bowler on a matting wicket than Fazal Mahmood . In Karachi , he took 4 for 35 and Nasimul Ghani also had four wickets. Here the difference between the two sides was Hanif's batting (a determined 103), and an equally solid 78 by Saeed Ahmad.
The Dhaka game was over in three days. Played on March 6-8, 1958, the Test match belonged to Fazal Mahmood who took 12 wickets for exactly a 100 runs (six for 34 and 6 for 66). Pakistan themselves were in trouble against Wes Hall (8 for 77 in the match). They were served well by Wallis Mathias in the first innings. He made 64 out of a total of 145. Fazal then proceeded to destroy the West Indies single-handed and they were bundled out for 76, until last Wednesday their lowest score in test cricket.
In Lahore on the Bagh-i-Jinnah turf, they put the memory of the Karachi and Dhaka massacre on matting wickets quickly behind them. They ran up a total of 469 with Rohan Kanhai making 217. But the innings of the series was played by Sobers, whose 72 I regard as the best I have seen anyone play against Pakistan , in Pakistan.
Wes Hall (5 for 87) then destroyed Pakistan . He performed a hat-trick and on the last morning, Ramadhin, bowling on a rain-affected wicket took 4 for 25, and Pakistan crashed to one of their most ignominious defeats in test cricket.
In Faisalabad , the West Indies were almost without Richards who was not feeling well and Marshal 's captaincy, when Pakistan were recovering from the brink of defeat, was not up to the mark. When Wasim Akram decided to use the long handle, he should have quickly brought on Harper, the only spinner at his disposal. When finally he did upon Harper, the off spinner obliged in his very first over. Perhaps Marshall was over confidant. Perhaps he thought no matter what target Pakistan set them, it would be easily within reach.
Another factor responsible for the West Indies debacle was of their own making. Repeatedly, the umpires had been politely warning a couple of their pace bowlers not to tread onto the wicket in their follow-throughs. But they couldn't help it with the result that at one end of the wicket a 'bowler's rough' developed.
Imran Khan had a quick look at it, and after only three overs from Wasim Akram , tourist will be a different side altogether both in batting and in bowling. The West Indies are lucky in that no other cricketing side has their kind of pace attack. Without fear of retaliation, they tend to bowl too short. Imran did test Marshal and Patterson with a few bouncers but he normally does not like to hurt the batsman.
A piece of advice for the Pakistani bowlers: Since most West Indians are natural hitters of the ball, they relish anything on the legs stumps. If I were Imran , I would like to concentrate on or about the off stump for all West Indian batsmen, except Richards. He can hit you all over the place. Even so, one should never bowl short at him and his colleagues. Bowl up to them, and you can play on their impatience to get on with it.
By the way, as I was looking up the record books to find out as to when the West Indies have done badly in Test cricket, I came across Richie Benaud 's choice of "Eleven West Indies Men Of My Time."
C. C. Hunte, S. M. Nurse, R. B. Kanahai, E. D. Weekes , C. L. Walcott , F. M. Worrel, G. S. Sobers, W. W. Hall, L. R. Gibbs, S. Ramadhin, and A. L. Valentine.
The choice was made in Wisden , 1976. Today, I would replace Gibbs with Micheal Holding and, with deep regrets, put in Viv Richards for Everton Weekes . In reserve I will have such players as Clive Lloyed, Alvin Kallicharan, Joel Garner , Gordon Greenidge, Roy Fredericks, Lance Gibbs, Everton Weekes, Jeffrey Dujon (or F. C. M. Alexander) and Basil Butcher. How would you like to play against this "second string?"
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I AM happy she is gone. She should have died then, even 20 years ago. Bedridden most of her life, Kuko Khala spent her last years in great agony. She brought me up because I spent most of my childhood with my maternal grand parents who loved me greatly because I was their first grandchild.
She cooked for me, she sewed for me, and she gave me my baths. She did everything for me. I was her child more than mother's. My childhood was spent in Amritsar , Fategarh, Dhariwal , Gurdaspur , Pathankot , Simla , Kangra and Dalhousie , some of the liveliest place in the Himalayas and their foothills. I was pampered like a prince by Kuko Khala and three other aunts and two uncles, the younger of them being the fly in the ointment. Not that he did not love me then or does not love me now, but I think he was delighted in hurting me as a child. But Kuko Khala more than made up for everything. And as I grew up, I learned to keep at a safe distance from my younger uncle.
Kuko Khala was a master knitter and a great cook. No one ever made better Koftas. She knitted and sewed for everyone in the family. Anywhere else in the world, she could have made a fortune as a creative artist in matters sartorial. Constantly sick or semi-sick, she could herself eat only sparingly but loved cooking for others whenever she could.
I hate death. I want everyone, especially those I love, to be immortal, myself included. But in cases such as Kuko Khala 's I think, euthanasia should be seriously considered. But then, as a young cousin said after we had buried her, euthanasia could be misused and slow down progress in the field of medicine. "It is the incurable case which spurs men to find cures, to invent new methods of surgery," he said. Perhaps he has a point. Even so, a line should be drawn somewhere.
As I was going to attend her funeral, I saw a rather lively looking young man listening extremely lively Western music on his car's cassette player. A few paces up, a grounds man was watering a cricket pitch and across the road on another trip, two young men were examining the wicket and loosening up for a weekend game. They made a pretty picture on a wonderful morning on the edge of winter, warm but comfortable. Kuko Khala had chosen a marvellous day for her last journey. "Bright and sunny. Ideal for cricket," as Brain Johanston might have said.
October 31, 1986
