Wounded tiger : the history of cricket in Pakistan

688 Pages·2014·13.05 MB·English

by  Oborne

WOUNDED
TIGER
Also by Peter Oborne:
Alastair Campbell: New Labour and the Rise of the Media Class
Basil D’Oliveira: Cricket and Conspiracy
The Rise of Political Lying
The Triumph of the Political Class
With David Morrison:
A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West Is Wrong About Nuclear Iran

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2014 by Peter Oborne
This book is copyright under The Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Peter Oborne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
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Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN 978-0-85720-074-7
eBook ISBN 978-0-85720-075-4
Maps designed by Liane Payne
Typeset in UK by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
To Saad and Ramma
Contents
Acknowledgements
Author Note
Maps
Preface
The Greatest Game
PART ONE: THE AGE OF KARDAR 1947–75
1 Founding Fathers
2 A Famous Victory at Karachi
3 Cricket before Partition
4 The Ground by the Goomti River
5 Triumph at The Oval
6 India in Pakistan 1954–55
7 The Humiliation of a Pakistani Umpire
8 Year of Prodigies
9 Fazal Replaces Kardar
10 The 1960s: The Lost Decade
11 Cricket in the Shadows of War
12 Kardar’s Apotheosis
PART TWO: THE AGE OF KHAN 1976–92
13 Pakistan Confronts the World
14 A False Start with Javed Miandad
15 Imran and the Revolution in World Cricket
16 Return of the Khan
17 The Shakoor Rana Incident
18 Cornered Tigers
PART THREE: THE AGE OF EXPANSION 1992–2000
19 Reverse Swing
20 The Curse of Match-Fixing
21 The Growth of Pakistan Cricket
22 Development of Women’s Cricket in Pakistan
23 The Financial Revolution
24 Last Years of Peace
PART FOUR: THE AGE OF ISOLATION 2001–PRESENT
25 Cricket in Exile
26 Horror in Lahore
27 Misbah-ul-Haq and the Future
White on Green
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Picture Credits
Index
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
I have acquired more debts than I can easily repay while researching and writing
this book. Najum Latif, curator of the Lahore Gymkhana Cricket Club museum,
has been a constant source of advice, insight, information, anecdote and
encouragement. His logistical support was also invaluable, especially in Lahore.
In Karachi, Afzal Ahmed and Qamar Ahmed have helped me understand the
well-springs of Pakistan cricket. Qamar has saved me from countless
misunderstandings and mistakes, while Afzal placed at my disposal his
astonishing bibliographical expertise and statistical knowledge and
understanding. I am especially grateful for Afzal’s patient and detailed readings
of successive drafts amid the demands of his business and family life.
Back in England, I originally asked my old friend and cricket novelist Richard
Heller to be my researcher. As this project grew ever larger and more ambitious,
he became more like a collaborator. Richard bears the main responsibility for
some of the most striking sections of this work, including the chapters on
women’s cricket and reverse swing, and the narratives of Pakistan domestic
cricket and many of the accounts of Test cricket. He has also been an
inexhaustible source of wisdom and humour and has a wonderful gift for
illuminating phrases. The book would not have been finished without him and I
would not have enjoyed writing it half as much.
Charles Alexander, formerly President of GE Capital Europe, carried out the
research, did the analysis, and wrote the first draft of the chapter on the finances
of Pakistan cricket. He also provided cheerful companionship around Pakistan,
and our discussions have guided the shape of this book. Stuart Jackson also
carried out superb archival research on cricket under the British Empire, the
early Indian tours (the subject of his undergraduate dissertation at Cambridge
University) and DB Carr’s controversial 1956 MCC tour of Pakistan.
Without access to the collections held by the British Library in St Pancras and
Colindale, the National Army Museum in Chelsea and the Imperial War
Museum in Lambeth, this book would have been impossible. Special mention
must be made of Lord’s Cricket Ground and the team working in their library