WME 3 9999 07710 435 2 yImran Khan | ALL ROUND VIEWPublished in r988 by Chatto & Windus Led 30 Bedford Square London wer 3RP Alll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 07011 33309 Copyright © Imran Khan 1988 Photoset by Rowland Photorypeserting Ltd Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Ld Trowbridge, Wiltshire CN ANEY HA Contents List of Illustrations Prologue Beginnings Winter in England All over the Place Captain of Pakistan Pain Comeback England in 1987, and the World Cup All-Rounder Best of the Rest Captaincy County Cricket Pakistan Cricket World Cricket All Round View Epilogue: West Indies v Pakistan 1988 Career Statistics Picture Credits Acknowledgements Index xiii 14 30 49 a7. 85 94 107 129 147 156 169 182 189 199 205 206 207FOR MY MOTHERIllustrations Title page: Imran Khan batting during the MCC Bicentenary match at Lord’s, 1987 Section One (between pages 18 and 19) ROC ON ANEW De 12 13 14 >) 16 17 A Punjab team With my parents and sisters With Javed Zaman Aitchison College Colts, 1964 Lahore under-nineteen team Practising in the nets at Lord’s, 1971 Batting against Hampshire Being introduced to the Queen Back to school Batting for Worcester Bowling in the Parks at Oxford, 1974 The second Test at Melbourne, 1976 Resting during a twelve-wicket spell at Sydney Karachi, 1978 The second Test against India at Lahore, 1978 Melbourne 1981 Dennis Lillee is hit by a short-pitched delivery Section Two (between pages 34 and 35) www The first Test against the West Indies at Lahore, 1980 My first Test century Clive Lloyd at short leg Joel Garner bowling The third Test at Melbourne, 1981 ixALL ROUND VIEW Section Three (between pages 82 and 83) 1 Caught off Bob Willis at Edgbaston in 1982 2 David Gower is caught by Wasim Bari at Edgbaston 3 Onmy way to 65 in the second innings 4 After the last Test at Headingley in 1982 5 Pakistan supporters acclaim the ‘Lion of Pakistan” 6,7,8,9 Abdul Qadir in action 10 Setting the field with Abdul Qadir 11 Umpires often give batsmen the benefit of the doubt 12 With my Pakistan contemporaries, Zaheer and Qadir 13 With Sarfraz 14 With Majid Khan 1s Mushtaq Mohammad 16 Javed Miandad 17 Asif Iqbal 18 Sarfraz congratulates me on my 200th Test wicket Section Four (between pages 98 and 99) 1 Emma Sergeant's portrait 2,3,4,5 A bowling sequence, taken during the Test at Headingley, 1987 6 Directing net practice, 1987 Section Five (between pages 146 and 147) Middlesex v. Sussex, May 1986 General Zia meets the team, 1987 The moment of victory at Bangalore The press conference at Old Trafford, 1987 My 300th Test wicket Ian Botham bowls me a bouncer I return the compliment Wasim Akram celebrates dismissing lan Botham The end of the series in England, 1987 With the Man of the Series trophy With Sunil Gavaskar during the MCC Bicentenary match BOe eo AW ew LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Section Six (between pages 178 and 179) Mike Procter Kapil Dev Richard Hadlee Garry Sobers lan Chappell, Greg Chappell and Rodney Marsh Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd Geoff Boycott Gordon Greenidge g Barry Richards to Allan Border 11 Bishan Bedi 12 Derek Underwood 13 Rodney Marsh 14 Alan Knott 15 Dennis Lillee 16 JohnSnow 17. Jeff Thomson 18 Andy Roberts 19 Malcolm Marshall 20 Joel Garner 21 Michael Holding ON Anbu ew xiPrologue Thad always promised myself that I would leave cricket when I was still at the peak of my form and still enjoying the game. Above all, | vowed that I would never be at the mercy of the selectors, or face the prospect of being kicked out in an undignified way like so many of the Pakistani greats. Ideally | would have liked to leave on a winning note at the end of 1987, but the Australians upset that plan by beating us in the World Cup semi-final at Lahore. I realised that any player who leaves at his peak faces pressure to come back, particularly if his place hasn’t been adequately filled. But I never realised the amount of pressure | was going to face, and that despite Pakistan winning the 1987 series in England. It became still more intense when Javed Miandad quit the captaincy at the end of the series against England in Pakistan. People demonstrated outside my house, and one or two even threatened a hunger strike. My mailbag increased to about a hundred letters a day, and the phone never stopped ringing. I avoided crowded places after I had been told 1 would be mobbed by people insisting that I come ba But the real pressure came from the boys in the Pakistan team. Most of them — especially the younger ones — pleaded with me to take them to the West Indies. Some of them were so disillusioned by the way in which the 1987 home series against England had been played, that they were contemplating miss- ing the West Indies series. For the first time I gave some serious thought to a comeback. After all, the boys had stood by me through thick and thin over the past two years. They had given xiiiALL ROUND VIEW me their complete loyalty: now’ that they needed me, was it such a big thing for me to change my mind? Whatever reservations I had were removed by General Zia at a banquet given for the Pakistan team on 18 January 1988. He gave a long speech, the crux of which was that while he appreciated my decision to leave at my peak, and felt it was a good one as far as | was concerned, the country needed me and sometimes ‘one had to rise above the self’. It was a great honour that the head of state had felt it necessary to appeal to me to join the team. I have to say here that all my family and close friends thought that I should have stuck to my decision to retire, and that although | had not done so on a winning note, I had left with more dignity than other Pakistani players. They also felt that, in Pakistan, people’s attachment to cricket was an emo- tional affair, and that if I lost in the West Indies they would not appreciate the reason for my taking on such a great challenge. No visiting team had won in the West Indies since 1973. In fact, few teams had even lost decently — for the most part they had been completely destroyed. England had been the last team to tour the Caribbean, and they had lost 5-0. So shell- shocked was that English team that it lost the following summer to India and New Zealand. However, this safe, no-risk thinking was not me. All my career I have taken risks: how could I forgo a chance of beating the West Indies on their home ground? To do so would result in Pakistan’s being recognised for the first time as the best team in the world. | would never forgive myself in years to come if | thought that being scared to lose had made me miss such a unique opportunity. CHAPTER 1 Beginnings Both my parents came from Pathan landowning families. My father’s tribe, the Niazi, arrived in India when the Lodhi Pathans were ruling in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. My mother belonged to the Burkis, a Turko-Afghan people who also came from Afghanistan, though they came to India a little later, after a dispute within their tribe. Like all Pathans, the Burkis and the Niazis were extremely proud of their back- grounds and clung on to their identity for hundreds of years. Independence is a hallmark of the entire Pathan race, and both my parents drummed it into us that we should not be dominated by anyone. They had witnessed the struggle for independence in 1947, and as a student my father had been actively involved in the independence movement. Both were fiercely anti-colonial and — after Pakistan had emerged as an independent Muslim state — patriotic Pakistanis, though my father used to get quite upset by a new class of Pakistani bureaucrats who simply stepped into the shoes of the col- onialists and were known as the Kala sahibs or black sahibs. The Kala sahibs acted out, and even adopted, the ways of the English. I remember how my father used to tick off the waiters in the Lahore Gymkhana Club who spoke to him in English. He also found it weird when Pakistani parents spoke English to their children. But — according to him — the worst type of Kala sahibs were those who played or watched polo. It was as though they were playing at Windsor Castle rather than the Lahore Polo Ground, and if anyone spoke Urdu, it was with an English accent.ALL ROUND VIEW My mother was a strong and proud woman, as were her two sisters. She had strong views on many issues, including politics and religion. Once, when I was thirteen, | was stopped by the police while driving my father’s car. I knew I was driving without a licence, so I bribed the policeman and got away with it. The chauffeur reported the incident to my mother. She was furious. She felt stooping to bribery was a real loss of dignity, and that I should have gone to gaol instead. | tried to defend myself by saying that other boys of my age had done the same in similar situations. Her answer was brief: “You are a Pathan.” In her eyes that was synonymous with pride and honesty. For as far back as | can remember, I was more ambitious than other boys of my age. As a youth, my confidence in my abilities as a cricketer seemed a natural outcome of the strong cricketing tradition in my family. From the age of seven I lived in Zaman Park —a small, compact, wooded, residential district situated on the right bank of the canal that runs through the heart of modern Lahore. The park there is used throughout the year for sporting activities, and cricket in particular. Before I was ten I was playing with members of my family, some of whom were already first-class cricketers. Zaman Park was the ideal environment for a budding cricketer. I can think of no other small neighbourhood, even in Barbados or the other West Indian islands, that has produced so many good cricketers. My parents had settled in Zaman Park in the late 1950s. Before that my father was in government service, and we were constantly moving from place to place. Although most of my mother's family lived in what is now India, my maternal grand-uncle, Zaman Khan, lived in Lahore, in the area which was later named after him. In those days Zaman Park con- sisted of only five or six houses, and was situated on the outskirts of the city. He was the only Muslim inhabitant, the other houses belonging to Hindus. During Partition the Hindu families migrated to India, while my mother’s family, travel- ling in the opposite direction, moved into Zaman Park. These 4 BEGINNINGS were uncertain and difficult times, and refugees in particular tended to cluster together. Once a few members of the family had settled in Zaman Park, others followed suit. The cricketing strain in my family comes from my mother’s side, and has a long and chequered history. Jahangir Khan, Majid’s father, was a Cambridge blue and played Test cricket for India in the 1930s. Majid’s brother, Asad, was an Oxford blue, and another relative, Baga Jilani, played in a Test for India against England at the Oval in 1936. My mother’s only brother, Ahmad Raza Khan, was also a renowned first-class cricketer before Partition, captaining Punjab against a touring MCC side. In my mother’s family cricket was a passion and the main topic of conversation. When I was a small boy, my mother used to tell me stories about the cricket matches in Jullundur between the men in the family. When the family moved to Lahore after Partition and congregated in Zaman Park, it was only natural that cricket should be the focus of activity. My mother’s first cousin, Javed Zaman, took charge of the sporting activities in Zaman Park. He also captained Lahore Gymkhana, which he does to this day. He has played for thirty years, and can land the ball on a line and length with his eyes closed. He has played a major part in shaping the cricketing talents of two generations of young boys — mine and the present one. He is known as ‘the godfather’, and it is fitting that he should have assumed this role since his father was the first family member to settle in Zaman Park. My mother and her two sisters all had sons who went on to captain Pakistan — Javed Burki, Majid and myself. Eight of my cousins have played first-class cricket, largely as a result of the calibre of the cricket played in Zaman Park. Soon after my father moved there I began to take part in matches in the Park. The games were quite remarkable, in that the players were anything between ten and thirty years old: first-class cricketers played with and against youngsters who could only just hold a full-size cricket bat. Yet children and grown-ups alike were extremely serious and competitive in their approach to the 3ALL ROUND VIEW game. The cricket was of a high standard, with the result that the youngsters’ development was extremely rapid. Oc- casionally we played ‘past’ versus ‘present’ matches, in which all those aged fourteen and under played against the rest; the ‘past’ players had to bat left-handed and bow! spin. I had to struggle in the early days because, when I first played in Zaman Park at the age of eight, I was not as good as other boys of my age, and was the last to be picked. This put me off cricket fora while—but there was no escaping it, because in Zaman Park all roads led to the cricket field. It took me a while to catch up with the rest. Naseer Mohammad, the games superintendent at my school, Aitchison College, was largely responsible for turning me round. He took one look at my batting style — which consisted exclusively of cross-batted slogs — and decided I needed a firm lesson in the basics of the game, front- and back-foot defence with a straight bat. After this, my batting improved dramati- cally, and I was no longer a sitting duck for the bowlers at Zaman Park. As my periods at the crease grew longer, my attitude to the game changed: all | wanted to do was to play cricket. I decided that I was going to play for Pakistan, and soon. To my mind this seemed pretty straightforward. After all, Majid had become a Test cricketer at the age of eighteen: there was no reason, I thought, why I couldn’t make it even earlier, particularly since | was already the best batsman in my prep-school team at the age of ele This precocious and naive conviction was the result of my knowing that Javed Burki and Majid Khan had already played for Pakistan. Watching my two elder cousins play in Test matches, | imagined myself striding out, performing great feats with the bat, and pulling Pakistan out of a tight spot. Such childhood fantasies are common enough, but in my case they had the force of reality. When I was just twelve, I went to watch Majid and Javed play New Zealand at Rawalpindi with my uncle Ahmad Raza Khan, a national selector. He told his friends that one day | would play for Pakistan. I never forgot that moment: for me his words were gospel. 4 BEGINNINGS Throughout my school years the exploits of Javed Burki and Majid Khan formed the framework within which I saw my development as a cricketer. Javed was an established bats- man and had already captained Pakistan,-but Majid’s career exerted the greatest influence on me. Only six years older than I was, he was already a legend in Lahore because of his incredible stroke play and medium-fast bowling. He was the star of Zaman Park and my cricketing idol. Later, when we played together for Pakistan, I used to feel far worse when he was got out than I did about my own dismissals. Within a couple of years I was, at fourteen, the youngest member of the Aitchison College team. Aitchison is an élite school with a superb cricket ground, one of the most beautiful T’ve ever seen. I was the school’s opening batsman and made a good many runs. At that time I was purely a batsman; no one took my bowling seriously, not even myself. | did my share of bowling in the nets, of course, but rarely bowled in a game. At school I was intent on rewriting the batting records. It was not until I was almost fifteen that I began to bowl more frequently, largely because I enjoyed watching the batsmen hop away from my short-pitched deliveries. | had little interest in taking wickets. Living and playing in the sequestered upper-class en- vironment of Zaman Park, Aitchison College and Lahore Gymkhana, I had no idea of cricket outside this small and privileged world. Since I was the best batsman at school, | automatically assumed that | was almost certainly better than anyone else of my age in the country. | was included in the trials to select an under-nineteen team that would represent Lahore against a touring English under-nineteen side. Almost two hundred boys turned up, and no one was allowed much time at the crease. The selectors must already have had a clear idea of who was going to play, since it’s impossible to judge a batsman’s ability in just three or four minutes. | strode out to bat, wearing my newly-acquired spikes and ready to unleash a glittering array of strokes; but the spikes upset my footwork and the first few deliveries beat me completely. The harder I 5