Rising from the dead – Test cricket in Pakistan

As all in Pakistan prepare for Test cricket's return to the country after a decade away, SM HUSSAIN talks to Faisal Iqbal, who was involved 10 years ago, about the impact of its absence and his recollections of a fateful day in 2009

I was 10 years old when my father took me to a cricket stadium to watch a Test match. As a ‘Yankee kid’ who had recently returned from the US with his family, I thought cricket was an imitated version of baseball. A few minutes into the game and I saw a tall, well-built man, bowling with a shiny red ball in his hand.

Perhaps, it was the big leap of the bowler or his long run-up with his hair flying in the wind which mesmerised me. On that pleasant winterish day in Karachi, involuntarily, I fell in love with the great game – cricket.

Sadly, for the past 10 years, no father was able to take his son or daughter to the ground to watch a Test match in Pakistan.

On March 3, 2009, Test cricket died in Pakistan when the bus carrying Sri Lankan players to Gaddafi Stadium was attacked in Lahore. Test cricketer Faisal Iqbal was one of the members of the Pakistan team in that Test match.

He recalls: “We were almost halfway through the journey to the stadium when we came to know about some disruption ahead so our bus took a U-turn. On our way back to the hotel we came to know about the firing incident.”   

In the good old days, attending a Test match in Pakistan was more akin to a picnic party. There is a beautiful cricket lore about how people used to give rides to total strangers on their vehicles en route to the stadium, about families going to the stadium with their tiffin boxes containing home-cooked meals, sitting on a cloth mat laid out on the concrete stand, watching Mushtaq Mohammad – Test cricket's youngest ever player at 15 years and 224 days old –fending away Wesley Hall’s bouncers.

In more recent times, one can never forget the sound of the beat produced by spectators hitting empty mineral water bottles on the stadium seats in sync with Waqar Younis' run-up, cheering him on to bowl fast. For local regional cricket associations, staging a Test match in the city was same as organising a carnival – the buzz from the players’ hotel lobby to the ground was a norm.

^{Faisal Iqbal (left) was part of the Pakistan team that played the last time Test cricket came to the country}

“The people of Pakistan have suffered the most; they were deprived of ‘home' Tests,” Iqbal explains. “Obviously not everyone could afford to travel to the UAE to watch Test matches.

“Now that Test cricket is coming back to the country, cricket fans and players who have never played in front of their home crowd will be the happiest people.

“Playing in the PSL (Pakistan Super League) is okay, but nothing tops the feeling of representing your country in front of your home crowd in a Test match – the pressure and feeling is totally amazing.”

The absence of Test cricket has hit the flamboyant cricket nation hard. It is an unequivocal fact that the standard of Pakistan's Test team has nosedived in the past few years. Test tours are not just to play Test matches; they also play a significant role in the development of second-string players who are not part of home Test teams.

In tour matches, budding cricketers of the host nation get a chance to rub their shoulders with international star players in three-day matches. Imagine the negative impact on the development of the second string players of the country if that aspect is taken away.

The importance of a ‘tour game’ can be traced back to 1984, when a young net bowler impressed Pakistan captain Javed Miandad so much that it paved the way for him to play against the visiting New Zealanders in a three-day match at the Army Sports Ground, Rawalpindi.

That young lanky bowler was Wasim Akram, who performed brilliantly in that tour match and booked a ticket on a plane to New Zealand. He took a ten-for in his second Test there and the rest, as they say, is history.

^{Yasir Shah struck an unlikely century on Pakistan's most recent tour against Australia}

The world of cricket needs a competitive, robust Pakistan Test team. Reminiscent of West Indies, Pakistan cricket brings a unique flavour to Test cricket – both have a rich Test history.

Who can forget that memorable 1988 series between the two nations played in the Caribbean, an encounter touted as the decider of the number one Test team in the world, played long before the world Test ratings and rankings. 

It is a Test nation which is unique in many ways, a country which despite having a comparatively modest domestic structure somehow manages to produce world-class cricketers from nowhere, a nation which has produced six of the ten youngest Test cricketers of all time, a country which holds the record as the only Test nation to beat England in England in a Test match on their first-ever Test tour to the English shores.

Since that unfortunate day in Lahore in 2009, 46 Pakistan players have made their Test debuts; which means that these cricketers are yet to play a Test match truly at home.

When eleven Pakistan players take the field in the first Test in Rawalpindi, they will be playing their first Test match at home, unprecedented for a nation which has a 67 years of history behind it.

Iqbal reckons that come the Rawalpindi Test, he will be the happiest person on earth.

“I was there when the unfortunate incident happened,” he recalls. “After that, we all tried our best to convince foreign players to come and play in Pakistan. Wherever I went in the cricket world I kept other players updated about the improved security situation in Pakistan.

“Now that Test cricket is coming back in the country, boys who were part of that ill-fated Test match must be delighted and I am one of them. When the first ball will be bowled in Rawalpindi, it will be worth all the effort.”

After ten years of stoic waiting, Test cricket will return to Pakistan on December 11, 2019. It is a day that will always be remembered. Due to strict security measures, people won’t be able to take their ‘Keema Parathas’ (flatbread stuffed with minced meat) along with them, but it is just a small price to pay.

Welcome back, Test cricket.

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