Captains, on the sports field – be it football, cricket, hockey or any other sport for that matter, are not a rare commodity as such. Eventually, many go on to captain their country; some deservedly so, while others not so much. Leaders, however, are a scarcer breed.
To lead your country-mates on the field is one matter, to lead them off it; with the same undiluted influence is an entirely different prospect. To be an icon of your country’s rise and sovereignty by the virtue of just being a cricket captain, that was only Abdul Kardar’s prerogative.
On what would have been his 92nd birthday on 17th January, we take a look at this Oxford graduate’s career, also known as “the founder of Pakistan cricket.”
Early years
Born in Lahore in 1925, Kardar started playing the game at Islamia High School in Lahore, slowly making his way in the team of Punjab University in early-1940s. With notable contributions in matches against Punjab Governor’s XI, Kardar got selected for Northern India in 1944.
A selection for Muslims in the Bombay Pentangular tournament followed, trailed by the selection for the then undivided India in 1946, thanks to a splendid hundred in a lost semi-final against West India.
England tour of 1946 – The road not taken
Going to England proved to be the turning point in Kardar’s career. While he didn’t set the stage on fire in his debut series, he stayed back in England, joined Oxford, due to a recommendation from Nawab of Pataudi, to study politics, philosophy and economics there.
His education and interests— such as writing letters to The Times, writing for The Dawn in his playing days, documenting his thoughts in books such as Bangladesh: The Price of Political failure (1985), suggests Kardar had a mind of his own. As Ramchandra Guha has rightly said in his book, A Corner of a Foreign Field – “Abdul Hafeez Kardar was perhaps the greatest cricketer-ideologue born outside the west.” Not many cricketers, of his or the present generation, can lay claim to such a title.
Having come back to serve his country in 1950, Kardar had meanwhile become the first Pakistani to play in county cricket with Warwickshire. His bowling improved there, having been put to test against quality county oppositions and visiting teams such as the Invincibles from Australia in 1948, against whom he scored a fifty.
Kardar - The captain
Due to his education and social standing, Kardar was soon made the captain of Pakistan cricket team at the age of 26. And the dictator in him soon found an opening in his role as the father-figure of his team.
“Democratic methods do not get the desired results,” were Kardar’s words after one of his decisions was overruled, perfectly sums up his philosophy as a captain. Leading Pakistan against MCC in 1951, Kardar’s soon made it a point to blood in youngsters such as Hanif Mohammad and Khalid Hasan; a policy which has been at the heart of what is good about Pakistan ever since.
According to Osman Samiuddin in The Unquiet Ones (A History of Pakistan Cricket), “Of the youngest thirty-one players ever to play Test cricket, five were given debuts by Kardar.”
Kardar as a batsman had a particular disdain towards spinners; fast bowlers were his go-to men in the attack as a captain. His approval, rather patronage of the art of fast bowling, encouraging tall youths from Bahawalpur in Punjab to take up fast bowling, has over the years appealed to so many individuals in his country that Pakistan still continues to churn out fast bowlers to this date.
Through his personal supervision, Pakistan assembled a team of young, inexperienced but talented individuals who were quick to make a name for their country. Having got Test status in 1952, under the helm of Kardar, Pakistan registered a win against all the test playing nations by 1958, except South Africa whom they never played against.
The achievements of Kardar and the Pakistan team on a whole, gained profound respect when compared with other emerging cricket nations such as India, which took 20 years to win their first Test.
Controversial captain
While Kardar became a great captain for his country, as a player, he was never the same. The flamboyance and excitement that characterised his batting left him as soon as he became captain. His bowling also lacked the penetration of his earlier days when he used to play in the University matches in early-1940s.
One of the many issues on which Kardar is criticised, other than his dictatorial style of functioning, was his marriage with Helen Rosemary Hastilow in 1954. On the tour of 1954 tour of England, after winning the Oval test, Kardar flew to Cairo to quietly get married to Helen, daughter of Cyril Hastilow who was Warwickshire’s chairman at that time.
What made the matters complicated was that Abdul Kardar was already married to Shahzadi Parveen in 1951, who was incidentally a sister of his team-mate Zulfiqar Ahmed. It caused a few problems in the dressing room, with even the national daily Dawn reporting on it.
Due to his personality, he had clashes with various individuals over the years such as Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan and Imran Khan over players’ payment in his capacity as president of the Pakistani Cricket Board in the early-1970s.
However, these controversies can’t be held up as a proof of the diminutive nature of Abdul Kardar in Pakistan cricket, instead, it shows his value all the more— as these qualities couldn’t bring the man down.
Thus, like every Pakistani hero, Kardar is not perfect – he is not the one you look for as your sister’s groom, but you end up rooting for him, even against your own wish. And this is how Kardar would like to be remembered, an imperfect hero for an emerging nation.
The Unquiet Ones by Osman Samiuddin and A Corner of a Foreign Field have been used as reference points.
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