Excerpt from Imtiaz Ahmad’s unpublished autobiography “For Cricket and Country”
Excerpt from Imtiaz Ahmad’s unpublished autobiography “For Cricket and Country”
Imtiaz Ahmed is keeping wickets against MCC at Lord’s, 1962. Photo courtesy: Rubina Imtiaz.[/caption] Editor’s note: It was my privilege to converse with the charming Rubina Imtiaz, daughter of Imtiaz Ahmed. For the uninitiated, Imtiaz was a man decades ahead of his time: in an era when quality batsmanship was considered an optional attribute, Imtiaz had assumed the role of an all-rounder. Imtiaz was also a member of every single one of the first 39 Tests played by Pakistan. Imtiaz Ahmed passed away on the last day of 2016. Fortunately, his children discovered his hand-written memoirs, consisting of cricket highlights, records and vignettes from his personal perspective. They are being compiled into a book as I write this, with multiple rare cricket pictures from the 1940s to the 1960s. Rubina graciously let me publish two excerpts from her father’s forthcoming autobiography For Cricket and Country, likely to be published in August. Here it is, unchanged, unedited, in the exact words used by the great man. [caption id="attachment_581664" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Imtiaz Ahmed in action behind the stumps in the match against MCC at Lord’s, 1962. Photo courtesy: Rubina Imtiaz.[/caption] The catch that I feel was the turning point of Pakistan Cricket history: It was in 1951; we were to play the second test match in Karachi against the MCC team led by Howard. During the team pre-meeting we concluded that MCC team had Tom Graveney who was a big challenge for us. If we could get him out early then we had a better chance of winning that match. We had observed him playing a little uppish shot on the ball when it was pitched on his leg stump. So it was decided that Fazal would ball two leg cutters to him and the third would be an incoming type on his leg stump. I was considered a safe bet, so was asked to be at the leg slip for the anticipated catch. It happened exactly the same way: I held a beautiful catch to get rid of Tom Graveney right at the beginning of his innings which helpedcool the MCC battle spirit, with all out in 123 runs only. It helped us win this vital historical match for Pakistan and ultimately, the admission into the International Cricket Council (ICC), MCC membership and international Test Cricket. The best catch of my test cricket matches: I held 7 catches behind the stumps at the Oval in 1954: a test we won against England making cricket history. No other visiting team has won against England, in England, on their first tour. The England captain and opening batsman, Len Hutton, while trying to have a wild hit against Fazal Mahmood, played it over the slip. I had to run behind the slips and caught the ball floating (moving) towards the third man. I had to run hard and cover a long distance to dive and catch that ball just as it was about to hit the ground.