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Remebered him as the 'solitary master'....tho i wasn't born then

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.

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Here comes Paint

... R.I.P!

RIP

In reply to natty_forever

970 minutes, man that is a feat.

In reply to Discourse

RIP...LEGEND

In reply to Discourse

R.I.P Hanif. I remember seeing some old black and white footage of him batting in England. Great technique on those uncovered pitches.

In reply to SnoopDog

The man dies but the legend lives.

rip

In reply to Bigzinc

Agreed. The techniques used by those old pros look awkward and sloppy in comparison with today's players. But people have to remember that those guys had to figure out how to combat bowlers bowling on sticky wickets where the ball could do almost anything.

In reply to Discourse
And yes he was a legend

In reply to Discourse


I saw him at Sabina that series.

Excellent batsman. Short at 5'6", we frustrated the West Indies bowling attack in the previous Tests (which I beleive included Gilchrist, Dewdney and Denis Atkinson).

They just could not get him out although at 16 years old he was the youngest on that team and the youngest Test cricketer we ever knew or saw.

By the time he came to Sabina, however, we seemed to have worked him out.

Incidentally, this was the same match that saw Hunt's 260 and Sobers' 365*.

It is worth noting that we don't think Sobers intended to stop at 365. He was prevented from batting on because the Jamaican crowd invading the field to carry him off in glory, gave as their reason that he had passed Hutton's 364 and they wanted this to remain forever by ensuring that he was not out.


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In reply to Ewart

Pity, was only able to read the stories.

In reply to Ewart

he made the Pakistani team at 16, but in this match at Sabina he was 22 or 23.

In reply to tc1

Do I always have to do your sums for you?



OK, he made the Pakistani team at 16.

But Hanif Mohammed was born December 1934. Most people would understand from this that he would not reach 20 until December 1954.

This Third Test at Sabina where I saw him was in March 1952. He was still 17.


Next time, try to check your facts before rushing into print.





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In reply to Ewart

I think that the match at Sabina Park was in 1958

In reply to Ewart

Smart ass, Pakistan never came to WI in 1952, they came in 1958, the genius
Made 365 no at Sabina 3rd test, Hanif made 337 at the oval 1st test.
Sir Everton made 197, Hunte 140 also in bim

In reply to googly1961 & tc1

You know you might be right. Indeed you are! I looked up the date and I saw 1952.But that could not be right, come to think of it.

So, abject apologies to readers and tc1. He was right too!

Mea culpa, mea culpa....




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In reply to tc1

My error! See post above. Sorry.


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In reply to Ewart

kool

In reply to Ewart




boy you taking that hard

In reply to Discourse

Nah


But when you make a hard case and it wrong... you must say you wrong!


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In reply to Ewart

Correct is right

In reply to Discourse
Ewart and Norm are the deans of WI cricket

In reply to tc1

In other words they're really old farts.

I think the 16 year Pakistani would have been Mustaq Mohammed, Hanif's younger brother.

INNR

In reply to jacksprat

Right, younger and one of the many brothers who played. As I recall he captained the touring team that including Sadiq another brother to the WI in 78/79.

Unfortunately for them, that was tour ushering the arrival of croft and Garner. A real exciting series tho

In reply to jacksprat

the 16 yo was Nasim Ghani, Hanif bother was Wazir on that tour

Garfield Sobers was also a teenager, just 18, I believe, when he played his first Test.

Lawrence Rowe, on the other hand, was made to wait until he was 25, if I remember correctly.


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In reply to Ewart

i think Rowe was 21 or 22 , he was very young

In reply to Discourse

It was the 1976/77 series

In reply to tc1

You're quite right, couldn't have been Mushtaq. As I said, he toured WI years after 1978.

I saw the little master played, he was everything everyone said he was. Pakistan greatest batter.

Off the field he was also a master-kind, soft spoken and polite, always.

RIP my brother.

May God grant you paradise.

Ameen

In reply to Emir

Yeah thanks bro....got my years mixed

In reply to tc1

Thanks, tc1. I was but an innocent teenager when Mustaq and Sadiq visited, but Ewart could give us first hand impressions about Hanif and that amazing series in which he made 337. I believe it was Pakistan's first ever Test tour of the West Indies, and Hanif was apparently completely unknown.

There was a story about a guy in a tree outside Sabina who watched the start of Hanif's epic 337, but fell asleep, fell out of the tree, broke his arm and ended up in the hospital for 2 days.

Immediately upon being released from hospital, he somehow managed to get back up into the same tree, only to witness Hanif still batting! The shock apparently caused him to fall out the tree again, breaking the other arm!

In reply to tc1

You know I am not going to make the same mistake again.



Born in 1949, Rowe was 23 in 1972 and became immortal in his first Test match one month after his 23rd birthday.

Here's Wikipedia's take:

Lawrence George Rowe (born 8 January 1949) is a former West Indian cricketer.
Lawrence, also known as "Yagga", was an elegant right-handed batsman described by Michael Holding, his teammate, as "the best batsman I ever saw". It was felt that his ability was so extraordinary that Sobers believed he could have been the greatest of all West Indian batsmen.

At one game Rowe hit a ball so cleanly that it followed a level trajectory like a guided missile over the boundary for six. Gideon Haigh describes the incident:

Early in his innings against England at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados, in March 1974, he received a bouncer from Bob Willis. He smashed it flat into the stand at square leg; it travelled most of the way at head height.[1] (By the way, I saw Hunte do that at Sabina against Pakistan in the same match with Sobers' record innings).

He (Rowe) made his debut for Jamaica in 1968–69. He then made history on his Test match debut v New Zealand at Sabina Park, Kingston in 1972, scoring 214 and 100 not out, the first time that a cricketer had scored a double and single century on Test debut. It also gave him a batting average of 314 after his first Test match.

In 1974 v England he scored 302 at Kensington Oval in Barbados.
On his arrival in Australia for the 1975–76 tour Rowe was being hailed as the best batsman in the world.

A century in his second Test innings in Australia maintained his average at over 70 runs per innings and it seemed to confirm his reputation. The team were humiliated by the Australian side over the rest of the series and Rowe never regained his previously devastating form.

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In reply to Norm

That is correct. How quickly he made a name for himself!

As to the rest of your entertaining story, you gave me my morning laugh. Sad to say, I cannot vouch for it beyond saying that I seem to recall hearing or reading the first part of it.

The return to the tree and the breaking of the other arm, though, is a nice addition that illustrates not only the teller's imagination but also Hanif's durability and impregnability.

Reminds me of the (apocryphal) doctor who turned up at the Norman Manley airport during currency restrictions in the 1970s with a cast on his arm.

Suspicious immigration officers thought he was trying to export money and, with his permission, broke the cast. The doctor went away and returned enraged the next day with a fresh cast, telling the now sheepish immigration officers, "All right. Unno can break it again now if you bad!"

This time of course, the US dollars were in fact inside the cast. Or so the story goes.



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In reply to jacksprat

Yes it was.

RIP Haniff.