Hanif Muhammad: The Original Little Master Before Sunil Gavaskar Came Along
A mere 22 families were once said to control Pakistan’s economy, a textbook case of exploitative oligopoly. But that might seem like egalitarian socialism when compared with the state of Pakistani cricket. Which for many years appeared to be run by two households only. One of these was Plebeian, as befitting their base, the trading port of Karachi. The other was feudal and lived in the town of kings, soldiers, and poets: Lahore.
In fact, as a lyrical sociologist, was there such an animal? We could use the story of these two families to write a larger social history of the nation. Punjab versus Sindh, land versus commerce, indigenous Pakistani versus imported Mohajir. This divergence in class and cultural origin was deeply marked in the form of these two homes, in their dresses, in their departments, in how they played the game, and in how they viewed the enemy.
The second family of Pakistan cricket was the Khans of Lahore. The first family was the Muhammad’s of Karachi, but before that, of the princely state of Junagadh. As a business house, they were a closely held partnership. There were five brothers who worked and schemed together. Not all the siblings, however, had equal shares in the family enterprise.
This was a strictly modern business, one indication being that it was not the firstborn son who controlled the strings. Merit, it seems, was what counted most of all. Thus, it was that the two elder and the two younger brothers deferred to the one who lay between. He was the unquestioned master, albeit a “little” one.
Hanif Muhammad was born in 1934, moving to Pakistan when he was 13. By then, his game had already been elaborated on in his native Junagadh. The story is told of how Hanif Muhammad would bat on after sundown, the unwilling bowlers shifting the game from a side street to the main one, to play on under one of the three lighted lamp posts that the Nawab allowed his subjects. After they shifted to Karachi, the boy came under the tutelage of Jeoomal Naoomal, a skilled all-rounder who had appeared in the first Indian Test eleven at Lord’s in 1932.
Naoomal spied in the lad, a future test player. To keep up his confidence and prepare him for test matches played over 30 hours. He instructed the umpires in Karachi, most of them his pulls, never to adjudge Hanif out of the leg before the wicket. Hanif was not long out of short pants before he returned to India with Abdul Hafeez Kardar’s team in 1952. Also on the side was his eldest brother.
Wazir Muhammad is an able middle-order batsman and the maker of two Test hundreds. The brother-in-law of Wazir was Raees Muhammad, once the twelfth man for Pakistan. From then until he retired in 1970, it was a case of “If you get Hanif out…”. The uncertain abilities of those who followed him placed a dreadful burden, and like Sunil Gavaskar, Hanif had to put his strokes in the bank locker for days on end.
He became, only partly out of choice, the best defensive batsman in the world of cricket. In this, he was indeed a key inspiration to the aforementioned Sunil. As a young boy, Gavaskar was told by his coach and early mentor, Vasu Paranjype, that “when Hanif played his forward defensive in the Brabourne Stadium, you could hear the sound of the ball hitting in the middle of the bat” as far away as Churchgate station.
Paranjype would have had in mind the Test played in Bombay in the first week of December 1960. Hanif Muhammad batted for almost two days before being out, running out for 160. Four years prior to that innings, Hanif was settling in for the distance on the other side of the globe at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. In this test, the West Indies scored 579, batting first, and dismissed Pakistan for only 106. Roy Gilchrist is taking four wickets for 32 runs. With Pakistan following on, Hanif had to carry his teammates through the last three days of the test.
That gifted wicketkeeper batsman, Imtiaz Ahmed, helped to score 91 in an opening partnership of 152. Two days still remained. Alimuddin scored 37, Saeed Ahmad scored 65, and Wazir Muhammad scored 35. Each stayed an hour or two. Watching the play on this fourth day, from a palm tree high above the square leg, was a group of Bajan boys. As the afternoon sun rose higher, one of them could no longer stand it.
Delirious from the heat, from Hanif’s relentless tuk-tuk, and doubtless from a steady intake of palm wine. The boy fell off the tree and landed on his head some 40 feet below. He was taken to a hospital, recovering consciousness 24 hours later. Inevitably, his first words were, “Is Hanif still batting?” The answer, alas, was that he was.
Triple Hundred vs West Indies
In this match-saving marathon, Hanif Muhammad scored 337 runs in 970 minutes. It remains the longest innings in Test-match cricket, and we may reckon it one of the bravest. I am not a statistical man, but some bowling must be quoted.
Roy Gilchrist 41-5-121-1
Eric Atkinson, 49-5-136-2
Smith, 61-30-93-1
Alf Valentine 39-8-109-2
Denis Atkinson, 62-35-61-1
Gary Sobers 57-25-94-1.
So, in desperation, the West Indies even called upon Clyde Walcott to bowl 10 overs. Hanif Muhammad lived and breathed cricket on all sides of it. He is remembered now only as a batsman, but on his day, he was sharp on the field. Never more so than in the last moments of the 1954 Oval Test, won by Pakistan by 24 runs. This is known justly as the Fazal Mahmood match, for it was the great seam bowlers six wickets in each inning that set up the victory.
But the final, decisive blow came from the right hand of Hanif. England’s last-wicket pair had added 20 of the 45 runs that remained. And Fazal Mehmood was biting tired. The partnership was finally broken by an underhand throw of Hanif Muhammad at the cover-point, disturbing the wickets from the side on.
The little master enjoyed a bowl, too. When, a mere five weeks after Hanif’s Barbados marathon in December 1957, Sobers reached 360 not out in the Jamaica Test, Hanif Muhammad was brought on to try his right arm spin. The second of the third balls went for four, and Sobers had equaled Len Hutton’s world record. Hanif Muhammad decided to bowl their left arm. It was a lovely piece of whimsy, and the first two balls did land on a perfect length. But of course, Sobers got the additional run in the end.
For a long time, Sobers held the record for the highest score by a batsman in a Test, and Hanif held the record for the highest score in a first-class match. This was his 499 for Karachi against Bahawalpur in 1958, a knock that ended when he was run out going for his five hundred runs in the last over of the day.
Hanif Muhammad Met Sir Don Bradman
Some years later, the Pakistani cricket team toured Australia. When they played South Australia at Adelaide, Sir Donald Bradman walked into their dressing room and asked to meet the man who had broken his record of 452. Hanif got up and apologetically said, Sir, you will always be the greatest. Don Bradman looked him up and down and replied, shaking his head, So you are the fellow. I always thought that the batsman who broke my record would be six feet, two inches tall, but you are shorter than me.
Did Hanif Muhammad ever play for any cricket team in England?
Hanif Muhammad never played first-class cricket for any county team in England, but he did appear for the Northamptonshire Second XI in a non-first-class match back in August 1965, when he was not yet 31 years old. He played in the game against Derbyshire Second XI at County Ground Derby, in which he made scores of 53 and 1*. His younger brother, Mushtaq Muhammad played for Northamptonshire in 1964–77 as a professional and captained them too; he also appeared in the said match.
Hanif Muhammad made three tours of England in 1954, 1962, and 1967 with the Pakistan side, but he also represented various other teams in several matches in the years 1965, 1966, and 1968 on England soil. His first, however, was a game for the Commonwealth XI against the England XI at Torquay in September 1958. In later years, he played mostly for the Rest of the World XI in addition to the international Cavaliers and the Duke of Norfolk’s XI. An important such match enjoyed first-class status for the Rest of the World XI against the Australians at Lord’s in August 1968. Hanif, though, managed scores of 4 and 10 only.
Read About: Shujauddin – Fighting Gusty Pioneering Test Cricketer / Inzamam-ul-Haq – The Big Gun of Pakistan Cricket
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