Hanif Mohammad was the first star of Pakistan cricket and the first to place Pakistan on the cricketing map
The late cricketer Hanif Mohammad showcased batting perfection, fusing together a rock-solid defense, watertight technique, and ice-cool temperament with his incredible powers of concentration.
Hanif epitomized perfection in batting technique, with his bat resembling a grinding machine or a boulder.
It's very hard to visualize anyone holding a bat straighter or possessing a more impregnable defense.
Background
Hanif was the first star of Pakistan cricket and the first to place Pakistan on the cricketing map, the "Little Master" who played the longest innings in Test history - his 970-minute 337 against West Indies in Bridgetown in 1957-58 - then followed it a year later with the highest first-class innings to that point, 499 run out.
Hanif’s younger brother Mushtaq turned into a great all-rounder and skipper, another brother Sadiq became a top-class opening batsman, while his older brother Wazir, who scored 197 in West Indies, is amazingly still alive at the age of 95.
A recipient of the Pride of Performance and featured as one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 1968, Hanif, along with Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, was the first of 55 inductees into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2009.
Hanif passed away in August 2016, at the age of 81. He had been undergoing treatment for respiratory complications from lung cancer in Karachi's Aga Khan hospital. He was diagnosed with the cancer in 2013, for which he received treatment in London.
Nature of Hanif’s batting
Hanif was the ultimate batsman to lead a rearguard action with a team facing peril. Few batsmen in cricket history displayed such a penchant to amass mammoth scores or occupy the crease for such a long duration. Although famous for his immaculate defense and never hitting the ball in the air, Hanif could also attack and was probably the originator of the reverse-sweep.
Hanif possessed a characteristic trait when taking guard: to touch his cap, stroke his right thigh with his gloves, and then twirl his bat right round before facing a bowler. He was the pioneer of the reverse sweep in a Test match, a shot which was later perfected by his younger brother Mushtaq Mohammad and is now a normal shot in the game, especially in limited-overs cricket. Hanif’s last Test was against New Zealand in 1969 at home, in which all three brothers — Hanif, Mushtaq, and Sadiq — played together. This was Sadiq’s debut and Hanif’s last Test.
Tributes
The cricket writer Osman Samiuddin felt that the solitary nature of so many prolonged, lonely vigils illustrated Hanif’s character, suggesting that “although every one of his innings was played for a collective cause, each time he went out to bat was also a private occasion for him, a pursuit unto his own self: an inner meditation.”
Great Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar once recounted his meeting with Hanif. “I was at Heathrow Airport waiting to take a flight home when I saw Hanif in a duty-free shop, and I immediately rushed to meet my childhood idol,” recalled Gavaskar. ‘I told him I am Gavaskar and had watched him as a schoolboy when he was batting at the Brabourne Stadium.’ Hanif turned around and said ‘Oh, you are a great batsman, Sunil,’ and I said ‘Sir, not better than you.’”
Initial breakthrough into the game
Born on December 21, 1934, in the state of Junagadh, he, along with his parents and four brothers Wazir, Raees, Mushtaq, and Sadiq, migrated to Pakistan in 1947 to settle down in Karachi. It was in this very city that he cultivated his skills in batting and rose to become one of the greats of his time, to be dubbed as the first ‘Little Master’ of the game.
At 13, when he enrolled in Sind Madressah-tul-Islam school, where the father of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had also studied, Hanif was lucky to be placed under the tutelage of a former Indian wicket-keeper Abdul Aziz Durrani, who before partition had played in an unofficial Test in 1936 before migrating to Pakistan.
A child prodigy, Hanif’s concentration and technical brilliance stole the hearts and eyes of the critics. While at school, he scored a triple century (309*) in an inter-school match to announce himself.
Earlier, when he was sent to London to be coached by Alf Gover, a former England fast bowler who ran a reputable coaching school at Wandsworth. After observing Hanif’s style of play and his wide repertoire, Gover told the cricket authorities in Pakistan: ‘This boy is so good technically that I cannot teach him anything more. Just keep him playing.’ Gover was not wrong.
Pakistan was not a Test-playing country then and was struggling to find its feet to establish itself at every level, including sports.
Career highlights
As word spread about the youngster’s talent with the bat, he was invited to play for the Bahawalpur and Karachi team against the 1951 MCC team, led by Nigel Howard.
Playing for the first time on a turf wicket at Dring Stadium, Bahawalpur, Hanif opened the batting with Nazar Mohammad to make 26 against the pace of Brian Statham and Derek Shackleton. He was soon invited to play for his country in an unofficial Test against the MCC at Karachi Gymkhana, where Pakistan defeated the MCC by four wickets. It was this victory that in fact secured Pakistan the full membership of the ICC and the Test status along with it.
Hanif’s innings of 64 in the second innings while chasing 288 to win had laid the base of a Pakistan win, as his captain Abdul Hafeez Kardar also made a fifty.
On Pakistan’s first tour of India in 1952 as a full-fledged Test-playing nation, the Little Master’s handsome contribution, along with that of lion-hearted pace bowler Fazal Mahmood and Pakistan’s first-century maker Nazar Mohammad, won the hearts of the critics despite the series loss.
Hanif started the tour with a century in each innings at Amritsar against the North Zone (121 & 109*) to become the youngest at 17 to achieve that feat. He gained the distinction of being the first Pakistan batsman to score a half-century in a Test when playing at Delhi’s Feroze Shah Kotla ground. In the third Test at Bombay, Hanif narrowly missed his first hundred when he fell at 96.
It did not take him long, though, to score a hundred in Tests when India visited Pakistan in 1955 and became the first-century maker in Tests on home soil. However, what really marked his transition to the world stage was Pakistan’s first tour to the West Indies in 1957-58 under Hafeez Kardar.
At Barbados in the first-ever Test against the West Indies, Pakistan, trailing by 473 runs after West Indies had scored 579, were made to follow on in the six-day Test, and defeat appeared a foregone conclusion.
Only a near-divine intervention could revive Pakistan from the dark waters, which was cemented by this 5’ 6” batsman Hanif, who ended up making 337 runs, occupying the crease for 970 minutes (16 hours 10 minutes) to record the longest innings played in Test cricket history and the first triple hundred scored in the second innings of a match. Playing ball by ball, unwavering, never contemplating the end, rarely looking at the scoreboard, he showed discipline in zones almost unbelievable to bat for three more grueling days.
Only a couple of years ago, in 2014, Brendon McCullum of New Zealand became only the second player to score a triple century in the second innings of a Test when he achieved the feat against India.
Hanif, combating the fiery pace of tearaway pacer Roy Gilchrist and Dewdney, defied West Indians for more than three days to virtually resurrect Pakistan from the grave, that too without a helmet or a shoulder or thigh guard, mind you. Hanif had carved one of cricket’s epics, with this monumental or path-breaking effort. Equivalent in cricket of a monument worth preserving in a museum. Overall, he amassed a record aggregate for a Pakistani batsman on a Test tour of the West Indies of 628 runs.
In his autobiography ‘Playing for Pakistan,’ Hanif recalled how a young spectator in that match, perched on a branch of a tree outside the ground, watched him bat for three days, dozed off, and fell from the tree to break his arm. When the story was reported in the paper, the boy was invited inside the ground by Kardar to sit in the pavilion and watch Hanif bat.
Pakistan lost that series of five matches in which Garfield Sobers also scored 365 at Jamaica to hold the record of the highest individual score in a Test, passing Sir Len Hutton’s 364 against Australia in 1938.
Only a year later, Hanif wrote a path-breaking chapter when he surpassed Sir Don Bradman’s record of the highest individual first-class score of 452 when he scored 499 for Karachi against Bahawalpur in a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy first-class match. The record stood for 35 years before it was overtaken by Brian Lara when he made 501 in a county match against Durham in 1994. It is rare ever in sport, let alone cricket, to witness concentration of such incredible power or a relentless spirit.
Hanif was run out in the last over of the match when attempting to get to the 500 mark. He, however, maintained till the end that it was a scoreboard error. “I was 498, and two balls were left for the day, but the scorecard showed 496, so I decided to get those four runs and ran, but before the second run, I was run out off a throw from Mohammad Ramazan.”
In 1960, in classical style, Hanif scored 160 at Brabourne Stadium.
In 1967, his 187 not out at Lord’s when he toured England as captain was one of the most remarkable innings ever played in England.
On his only tour to Australia as a captain, when Pakistan played only one Test in 1964-65, Hanif showcased his greatness when he scored a brilliant century in the first innings and a fluent 93 in the second before getting dismissed in a controversial fashion when ‘keeper Barry Jarman claimed to have stumped him, but there were no replays to confirm that.
The former Australian captain Ian Chappell, who was making his debut in that Test, clearly told me that Hanif was wrongly given out in the second innings. “I was standing in the slips, and the keeper didn’t have the ball in his gloves when he removed the bails,” said Chappell.
Evaluation
Hanif Mohammad ended his Test career aggregating 3915 runs at an average of 43.98, with 12 centuries in 55 Test matches. In first-class cricket, he aggregated runs at an average of 52.32, scoring 66 centuries.
Arguably, Hanif’s statistical record in Test cricket does not accurately measure his true impact and greatness. Without hesitation, I would still club him in the category of ‘truly great.’
No Pakistan batsman was ever more prolific on a tour of the West Indies or harder to dislodge. Overall, he did not have the exposure to the game as the later batting greats, playing only 2 Tests in England and one in Australia. Hanif was exposed to the most daunting bowling and conditions and missed the privilege of facing weaker bowling attacks like later Pakistani stalwarts. While he did not possess the free-flowing artistry of Zaheer Abbas, the improvisation of Javed Miandad, or the audacity of Inzamam-ul-Haq, he is still a prime contender for the title of the best Pakistani batsman ever. For the final verdict, in my view, it would be a photo finish between Miandad and Hanif, with the hardest aspect to assess being the capacity to turn or win games, giving respect to different eras.
Hanif could also pose a challenge to the likes of Len Hutton, Barry Richards, and Sunil Gavaskar for a place in an all-time Test XI.
From a technical point of view, Hanif was on par with Len Hutton and Sunil Gavaskar.
With a gun to my head, he would just scrape into the top ten opening batsmen of all time, being a strong contender to the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Virender Sehwag. In my view, he was arguably unfairly excluded from the list of all-time hundred best cricketers by Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Geoff Armstrong. Still, John Woodcock ranked him in 84th place in his 100 best list of cricketers. Overall, 5 cricketers chose Hanif in their all-time Test XI, including Subhas Gupte.
Hanif Mohammad would be my automatic choice to bat for an all-time Pakistan Test XI, joined by Saeed Anwar. They would together constitute the perfect opening pair, with Anwar being an epitome of aggression and stroke-making. In an all-time XI, Hanif would be a perfect complement to Barry Richards or Sehwag to open the innings, a perfect fusion of solidity with attacking aggression.
Personal Selection
It is pleasing to hear that Hanif classed Sunil Gavaskar as the best ever opener and Sachin Tendulkar the best batsman of all time. In his all-time team, he chose the likes of Garfield Sobers, Don Bradman, Imran Khan, Gavaskar, Viv Richards, Dennis Lillee, Fred Trueman, Shane Warne, Godfrey Evans, and Len Hutton.
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*Freelance journalist
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