Mullets and Morose Moustaches

And some moments in this war minus guns stuck. Here then is the gist of Indo-Pak cricket, from a 25-year-old8217;s perspective.

Javed Miandad
Sharjah, April 1986
As a rule, it may be assumed that all Indians are born conscious of Javed Miandad, so this was no introduction to Miandad. This was an introduction to three other things: To a gent called Chetan Sharma; to the, even then, absurd8212;and now so obviously devious8212;protest that the Sharjah matches against Pakistan were unfair because they are played on a Friday; and, of course, to India8217;s constant hammerings at these matches. A crucial point about Miandad8217;s innings, gleaned recently from replays on TV8212;the stroke of genius was not the six. That was naked survival instinct against ghastly bowling. The stroke of genius came three balls earlier, more popularly remembered for Roger Binny8217;s diving stop at square-leg. But what a shot to send the ball there! Javed bent low, took Chetan Sharma8217;s respectably brisk pace on the bounce from off-stump and paddled him away as if he were dealing with Kirti Azad. No songs were composed in honour of the sweep. At last count, the six had allegedly spawned thirty-six.

Qadir8217;s action
January-March 1987
In early 1987, the Pakistanis came to India and I saw them live for the first time, in a hotel lobby The Banjara, Hyderabad. Azhar8212;so skinny he was!8212;was the first to sign the display bat in the foyer, to terrific hoots. If I cannot remember Abdul Qadir taking a wicket on the tour, it is because it emerges that he took only four of them in three Tests. It was enough to drive the lot of us to leg-spin bowling. The jerks and the angles, the arms and the tongue, the hops, the skips, the jumps8212;who wouldn8217;t aspire to such stunts? It is a laughable assertion of Western observers that Shane Warne heralded the revival of leg-spin. Qadir carried the torch, virtually alone, through the barren 1980s. And while we must wait and watch Warne8217;s legacy, Qadir can already point to two living, breathing, contorting proofs in Mushtaq Ahmed and Danish Kaneria8212;each the possessor of a finer googly than his predecessor.

Manjrekar8217;s arrival
November-December 1989
The 1989-90 tour of Pakistan famously delivered to the world Tendulkar. Tendulkar, who waved away help after a bloody hit on the nose from Waqar; who smashed Qadir for dozens of runs in a single over; Tendulkar, who was just out of school. I have no memory of watching this series8212;I8217;m not even certain that it was televised. What I am certain of is that Tendulkar did not enter my consciousness at the time. Poring over the stats tables and articles in Sportstar, it was obvious that Sanjay Manjrekar was the man. Manjrekar would save us from all disasters. Manjrekar would tide the roughest seas, scale the highest mountains, traverse the deepest forests. Manjrekar was all-encompassing8212;Manjrekar was the epic hero. He even resisted the 8217;tache. In other words, he was Rahul Dravid. It was, while it lasted, a supremely secure feeling.

Ijaz8217;s madness
Lahore, October 1997
And, revealed Manjrekar recently in a column, badtameez is how an Indian cricketer paid tribute to Ijaz Ahmed as he flayed his way to a century in 1997. I remember the innings well. It was more than badtameezi. It was atyachaari. It remains the most violently dismissive piece of batting I have seen: 139 from 84 balls, with nine sixes. Ijaz looked like a middle-weight kushti fighter and took guard like a man hunting oil with a pickaxe. His key trait was nodding approval at the bowler whenever he was unable to hit a ball for a boundary. There was little nodding that day. I think this was also the innings that shocked Indian commentators into forgetting how to pronounce his name correctly Shastri: E-jazz, Gavaskar: Ijaaj, a skill they never subsequently recovered. Two years on, Ijaz would remark in response to Bal Thackeray8217;s hooligan antics and threats: 8220;I receive a lot of fan mail from India and people ask me why we do not play there. It8217;s time now to counter such threats.8221; Ijaz, a true and forgotten giant.

Wasim to Dravid
Chennai, January 1999
By about now I was feeling my way towards a better understanding of an India-Pakistan cricket match, and there was all cricket, all sport, in this Test. Its moments could easily fill up this entire list, from Kumble to Saqlain to Afridi to Prasad to Sachin to the victory lap. But, because of sheer spectacle, the moment must be Wasim Akram dismantling Rahul Dravid. All possibilities hang in the balance while a Wasim delivery is in transit, a quality otherwise within the grasp of only the most prodigious wrist-spinners. Early on the fourth and decisive morning, Wasim had a plumb LBW against Dravid, with one that bent back8212;a setback to which he responded a few moments later with a delivery that your regular great bowler would be hard pressed to even imagine. It started outside leg stump, and early in the proceedings looked set to swing away down leg. About halfway down its path, it began straightening, then slyly curling the other way, into leg stump. As Dravid prepared to meet it with his whole body waiting as a second line of defence, it zipped away in a startling blur, past his outside edge8212;remember that fast bowlers only bowl Dravid, if at all, past his inside edge8212;and toppled the bail. It remains the greatest ball I have seen, greater than Warne8217;s to Gatting, and greater than either of Wasim8217;s own two-in-twos at the MCG on the electric evening of the 1992 World Cup final.

Sachin8217;s third boundary
Centurion, March 2003

A short man at the peak of his genius took guard against the fastest thing cricket has ever known in the most tension-filled of affairs at the most demanding of tournaments. What happened next is already part of folklore. Shoaib bowled short and wide and Sachin stretched himself towards point, bat at shoulder height, and hit a six. Shoaib bowled full and straight and Sachin stayed deep in the crease and blended his wrists over the ball to send it behind square for four. Shoaib hit the spot, just outside off stump, on a good length, and Sachin walked across, angled his bat towards mid-on, and lowered it softly with a little skip of the feet and no follow through. The first stroke has become iconic, overcelebrated; the second one forgotten for he plays so many of those. But the third one8212;the third one8217;s the one. Simply, nobody else could have played it.

Karachi climax
March 2004
Karachi was to India-Pakistan one-dayers what Chennai was to Tests. Inzamam8217;s innings in a losing cause was Sachin8217;s at Chennai; Kaif8217;s catch off Shoaib Malik was the moment of magic that was Wasim to Dravid. And the climax was the climax. In truth, each could boast a double climax. The game at Karachi with Moin, poignantly, needing to hit the last ball for six, would have been by far the largest chase ever made in limited-overs cricket. And he got a full-toss. As Moin8217;s bat slipped out of his grasp, as the ball hung in the air, and then fell limply into Zaheer Khan8217;s hands, an utter silence fell upon the ground. And then the swell of emotion, rising and rising all day, reached a head in the form of an absolute and sustained gooseflesh ovation from every person in the stadium. As at Chennai, cricket had provided the arena for an extraordinary handshake between the peoples of two nations. And it marked the beginning of the most precious of tours.

Rahul Bhattacharya is the author of the just-out Pundits From Pakistan