Cricket’s original Little Master dies

Hanif Mohammad, 81, loses long battle with cancer

KARACHI: Four numbers – 337; 499; 970; and 81 – may be used to sum up cricket legend Hanif Mohammad’s life. A life halted on Thursday by lung cancer. The man may be gone but for cricket fans around the world, he leaves behind a peerless legacy and many historical memories to cherish.

Hanif’s marathon innings of 337 runs against a mighty West Indies side in 1958 in Barbados will live on in memories for a long time. And rightly so: the knock was the first-ever triple century by a Pakistani, the first-ever in the second innings, the only ever made for a team forced to follow on.

The 970 minutes he spent out on the crease in the Caribbean heat is the longest Test innings to date. To put the innings into perspective, his 337 was more than triple of Pakistan’s first innings of 106 all out.

For around 35 years, Hanif held the record of the highest first-class innings: his 499 runs against Bahawalpur in 1959 at the Karachi Parsi Institute Ground. The record was finally broken by West Indian great Brian Lara’s 501 not out in 1994.

Pakistan’s legendary batsman played 55 Tests, including the country’s first-ever Test after Partition, and accumulated 3,915 runs at an average of 43.98 with 12 centuries.

Hanif, whose brothers Wazir, Mushtaq and Sadiq along with son Shoaib were also Test cricketers, played 238 first-class matches in his illustrious career, amassing 17,059 runs at an average of 52.32 with 55 centuries and 66 half-centuries.

But Hanif always represented more than his numbers — for a young nation facing early strife, he represented endless hope and resolve. With their ears fixed on the radio, cricket fans used to say Pakistan couldn’t lose a Test till Hanif was out there in the middle, that he will fight till the very end, that he will save the day. And he stood true to his fans’ expectations — fighting till he could fight no more, fighting further than any could have hoped for, and for a brief moment, he even defied death.

“Thank God he is still alive,” said a crying Shoaib when he was called up after news broke of his father’s death. “His heartbeat stopped for about six minutes. Doctors tried to rescue him and his heart started beating again. Pray for him because his condition isn’t stable and he is in a lot of pain.”

But Hanif, like the rest of us, was human after all and eventually succumbed to the cancer that had plagued him for several years.

A man of many words

While many would think Hanif was a quiet and sagely old man, he had the knack of talking a lot despite being wise. When recalling old anecdotes, he would often ramble on and had to be told to rest for a bit, only for him to brush off those suggestions.

A triple-century ignored

Hanif’s biggest gripe with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was that he felt his 337 was not honoured as much as the other two triple centuries by his countrymen – first by Inzamamul Haq and then by Younus Khan.

“Am I different? The present command of PCB could have called me and honoured me but they will realise once I’ll depart from this world and then it would be too late,” he lamented when The Express Tribune talked with him a couple of weeks ago.

Hanif comes from a time when batsmen were not as protected as they are now, with little or no protective gear to speak of. “We’ve suffered so much for Pakistan but the board doesn’t remember its legends,” he said. “Our only line of defence used to be our bat and the blows we suffered on our below-par pads and gloves still hurt a lot.”

A painful loss

The most painful memory of Hanif’s life that would bring tears to his eyes and make his voice tremble was losing his grandson Ayan, who died from a brain tumour. But the ‘Little Master’ drew inspiration and strength even from that blow.

While Ayan was taken away from the family, Hanif’s smile was maintained by granddaughter Aiza, who often spent time in Hanif’s room, singing songs and poems much to her grandfather’s delight.

“I want to see my grandson Shehzar Mohammad become a Test cricketer in front of my eyes. I also want to see an academy named after me and hope the government will provide me land so that an extraordinary sports institution could be built upon it and my son Shoaib could run it,” he once said when asked whether he had any last wishes.

Unparalleled respect

Hanif enjoyed unparalleled respect in the cricketing world once shown by Younus Khan who sat by the batting maestro’s feet after his own heroics against Australia in 2014.

Lara also sent Hanif a video message when he learnt about his poor health. Hanif claims the world’s other two Little Masters – Indian legends Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar – used to call him the original Little Master. Pakistan has lost a proud patriot, a family man through and through and one of the greatest the game of cricket has ever seen. Hanif’s long vigil may be over but his legacy shall never be.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2016.