Pakistan’s original rock star cricketer, Fazal Mahmood

Pakistan’s original rock star cricketer, Fazal Mahmood, destroyed the first Australian side to tour the country
DECEMBER 12, 20166:17PM


Robert Craddock
The Courier-Mail

IF Australia’s batsman find the pink ball gives them red faces at the Gabba this week here’s a slice of history that proves it could have been worse.
Old-time Australian players reckon there is only one thing worse than being wrestled on to the mat – that’s having to play on one.
This week’s Pakistan Test at the Gabba represents the 60th anniversary of the first Test between the two nations, at Karachi, in the summer of 1966-67 which Richie Benaud’s Australia’s agreed to stop in for a one-off Test on the way home from England but probably wished they hadn’t.

Fazal Mahmood, a local police inspector with a devilish ability to cut the ball both ways, seamed the ball up to 20cms on the coir matting wicket which was fastened over the local wicket block.
Australia, surviving on a diet mostly of eggs, chips, bananas, dry toast and black coffee, were bowled out for 80 and 187 and lost by nine wickets, with Fazal and his opening bowler Khan Mohammad bowling unchanged for 53 overs in the tortuously slow first innings.

There were whispers of the matting being tightened – and consequently playing truer – when Pakistan batted, and stones slipped under it when Australia batted.
But one thing no-one had any doubt about was the prowess of the debonair Fazal whose mastery was such the matting was dubbed his magic carpet as he claimed the wickets of Australian greats Keith Miller and Neil Harvey.
“Fazal was tremendous on the mat,’’ said Australian all-rounder Alan Davidson, who will be in Brisbane for the opening says of the pink-ball Test this week.
“He was dynamite. He could cut the ball either way and it went enormously. I could imagine him being equally as dangerous on an English pitch.’’

Long before Pakistani bowlers like Imran Khan and Shahid Afridi became rock star figures the tall, debonair, green-eyed, floppy fringed Fazal Mahmood was both a hero and hearthrob.
“He was an impressive figure, Magnificently built bloke. He had the air of the superintendent of police. He was an inspirational sort of fellow,” Davidson said.

“I was brought up on mats and I knew how you could make it better for the bowler and better for the batsmen. It was not hard to move the pegs.’’
“There were cities of tents. I can remember the camel dung fires. They made us feel really welcome but it was not easy for them and I felt sorry for them.’’
Australia returned to play eight Test matches in India and Pakistan in 77 days three years later and victories in both series remain one of the most underestimated achievements in Australian cricket history.
“It was actually good for us as a team because we had to acknowledge that other people were far worse off than we were,’’ Davidson said.

“When we played a Test match in Lahore, the Pakistan team stayed in a hotel in Lahore and we stayed in an army camp. We slept in tents in the desert. We had lamps going all night which was great because I could hear things scurrying around outside. They may have been centipedes.
“As much as it was challenging, it helped to bind out team. They gave us a stronger will to win and proved that we could do it.’’
Originally published as The mystical seamer who tamed Richie’s tourists

Pakistan has always had good players , but corruption destroys them.. ::confused::