Iconic sportsmen Jahangir Khan and Waqar Younis made an appearance on Time Out with Ahsan Khan recently, talking about their humble origins as well as how they’ve managed to steer clear of any “scandals” throughout their respective careers.
Speaking about how he started out playing squash, former world champion Jahangir explained that his family’s athletic background provided the push he needed early on. He shared, “Squash has always been a part of my family background. My father was a world champion and my uncles were players as well. They dominated in the 1950s, when Pakistan was about three years old. They set the bar. All the children in the family looked up to them.”
He elaborated further, “The way they struggled, went abroad and achieved so much. That was transferred into the kids. The greatest advantage was the coaching and training, because if I ever had any questions, my father was right there. There was a lot of hard work involved.”
On Jahangir’s iconic status, Waqar remarked to the host, “You know how you grew up watching Jahangir bhai? He is basically our hero as well. When we were growing up, he was the star. If there’s one person who has made Pakistan proud internationally, he’s the man.”
When asked about his early career, the cricketer shared that he didn’t think he’d ever go on to achieve as much as he did. Explaining how sports came naturally to him but cricket was something he cultivated a love for later on, he shared, “I never thought I would reach this level. What do we watch on TV? We watch sports. I used to play all sports. I was a good athlete in school. High jump, long jump, sprinter, all that. You can see it in my bowling. That helped me a lot.”
He continued, “Cricket and fast bowling came to me more or less after I had almost finished school. Ninth, tenth grade. That’s when I felt like this is something I should get into. A few coaches at my school also encouraged me to focus on cricket. That’s how I got into it. I come from a very small town, Vehari, near Sahiwal and Okara.”
Reflecting on the state of Squash in Pakistan, Jahangir reflected, “The government has never provided the kind of support that they should have. If you’ve stayed world champion for 30 years, that’s not a short amount of time. We didn’t get what we deserved in return. For example, schools and academies should have been set up so that more children could come forward.”
On the lack of public sports facilities, “Once you have established something, it is the government’s job to take it further. Squash isn’t the kind of game you can play in the streets. You have to have proper facilities for that. These days, if you take kids to these facilities, they are all in private clubs. There are no public courts where children can play. You can only take the game forward if you provide the right facilities.”
Sharing how there is no lack of talent in the country, Waqar shared, “In Pakistan, people say there is no talent, but talent is always there, you just need to give it space and groom them. We were lucky because we had the love of the game, which is still there in kids today, but because cricket has advanced so much and there’s so many new technicalities related to fitness, diet and training, that in order to compete you need more than [love of the game]. In our time, pure hard work was enough.”
When asked by Ahsan how he had managed to maintain such a pristine image after all these years, Jahangir responded, “Just like in the game, it’s all about balance. Everyone has an image that they have to maintain. In our time, we didn’t have these mobiles and laptops. These days, scandals are found everywhere.”
After the same question was posed to Waqar, he responded, “We were never careful. We were blessed by God since we didn’t have social media in our time. We got out neat and clean.”
On his biggest fears, Waqar explained that he wasn’t particularly afraid of anything anymore, but the idea of becoming embroiled in a harassment scandal would plague his thoughts early on. He shared, “I don’t have any fears anymore. They were there back in the day. Fears about things like this MeToo, BeToo, CeeToo. That something like that doesn’t happen. Now I don’t have any fears, I’ve seen everything.”
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