Memories of Australia v Pak in 1977

Awesome Sight
By Fair Play
May 11 2004

PakPassion's learned poster fairplay provides us with some interesting memories of Pakistans tour of Australia in 1977. Might be an eye opener for some of our younger members of PakPassion.

Walker in Sydney 1977

Maybe Australian cricket fans remember the following incident - quite unique in my 28 years of following cricket. The incident was almost an exact precursor of the Steve Waugh nick from the final Ashes test of the 2002 series, except in the 1977 case the batsman walked.

It was January 1977, third and final test match of the strongly contested Pakistan Australia test series. Pakistan, one down in the series, had unexpectedly dismissed Australia for 211, with Imran Khan taking 6 good wickets. On a fast and bouncy surface, Pakistan were up against a fearsome Lillee and the new ball. Some of the most riveting cricket of the match was played at the beginning of the Pakistani innings as Lillee, Gilmour and Walker tried to put Australia back in the game.

Pakistan's hopes, as always, centered on Majid Khan when it came to playing genuine pace. Mushtaq Mohammad, the Pakistan captain, later revealed that game plan for the series was for Majid to take most of the strike against Lillee, sheltering the other batsmen as much as possible. This Majid did, no more so than in this first innings at Sydney.

At 111-3 honours were just about even. Walker was introduced into the attack. Majid shaped to play a ball outside off stump, and seemed to miss it. No one appealed - not Marsh the keeper, nor the slips, nor the bowler. But the batsman just put his bat under his arm and walked away.

When the new batsman, Asif Iqbal, arrived at the crease, the Australian players were still in a huddle discussing what had happened. It was some time before everything was clear - the batsman had just walked after nicking a ball, appeal or no appeal. He hadn't even looked in the umpire’s direction or cast any glances behind him as he went through the gates into the pavilion.

An even more interesting background and postscript to this incident is the famous sun-hat story. Ian Chappell regaled it best during a dull session of the 1999 Ashes series. Majid’s favourite hat was purchased during his time as Queensland’s overseas player in 1973. Wary of shrinking it, he had never had it washed, so by 1976 it was already very well worn and a deep faded brown rather than its original pristine white.

The battered hat, chiseled features, combination of lightening fast reflexes and languid mannerisms, created the aura of a Pakistani version of Clint Eastwood in an old fashioned Western. A laconic turn of phrase heightened this effect. Unlike his contemporaries, with their bureaucrats’ interest in averages and statistics, he was only really motivated by one on one challenges, not that you could see it. His air of calm and boredom gave nothing away. There was never a less undemonstrative cricketer. Tony Lewis, his captain at Glamorgan, once summed him up best ‘his only interest was to show the opposing bowler up.’

In the nets before the first test at Adelaide the sun-hat caught Lillee’s eye. “Hey Majid, why don’t you get rid of that thing?” Back came the reply “Lillee, if you can hit it, you can have it!” “I’ll knock it off Majid” “You have 3 tests to do it!” Ian Chappell recalled the exchange as an example of “Majid’s wonderful dry sense of humour.”

Midway through this first innings at Sydney, and before the walking incident, Majid misjudged a short ball from Lillee, neither hooked nor took evasive action, and was hit on the forehead. As concerned Australian fieldsmen ran up to him, he held up a hand to say he was all right and instead walked to the middle of the pitch to greet Lillee. Without a word, he took off his hat, smiled, and placed it on Lillee’s head. There were smiles all around, and the Australian television commentators were delighted. This was the way cricket was supposed to be played – hard but fair and always within context.

Pakistan who had been bowled out by Lillee on a flat pitch in the previous test at Melbourne now fought on to 360. With Imran again giving it his all Australia were dismissed for just 180 in their second outing. Nobody had expected this. Pakistan’s 2nd innings target of just 32 seemed a mere formality. But quite unexpectedly this mere formality turned into high drama.

For those of us watching in Pakistan, the remaining 45 minutes of this game were to become indelibly etched in our memories. Raw athleticism, unbridled aggression, unyielding courage and high skill produced the sort of sporting confrontation when cricket transcends mere runs and averages. The atmosphere was supercharged from start to finish.


The protagonists were Dennis Lillee and Majid, with a cast of bit side players. Has there ever been a finer combination of sheer power, skill, determination and athleticism than this great fast bowler? At 27 he was at the peak of his prowess, thundering in from a gloriously long approach and out smarting and intimidating the best of batsmen. In the last previous two seasons of 1974-75 and 1975-76, he and Thomson had run amok, as the English and the West Indians were gunned down 4-1 and 5-1 respectively. Articles penned by medical luminaries in the English press queried whether batsmen were biologically capable of reacting in time to what was being hurled at them.

This was also the setting for Pakistan’s first ever live (and colour) broadcast from an overseas test. As the camera homed in to the Sydney cricket ground on the morning of January 18, 1977, Greg Chappell was seen setting a field of 5 slips and two gullies, with not a man in front of square on the off. As the batsman took guard, even the Australian television commentator sensed a special occasion. The tone of his clipped introduction “And with the wind behind his back, Dennis Lillee!” was nothing short of perfect.

The first ball was a wild leg side bouncer, which Marsh just managed to tip to fine leg. Majid and Sadiq jogged a bye. The next three balls were all bouncers but directed with considerably more precision – Sadiq, courageous and compact, took evasive action on all but gloved the last one to the keeper. Pakistan 1-1. In Pakistan Sadiq’s brother, the little master Hanif called in for expert comments, protested “Four consecutive bouncers, a bit unfair!” Those were the days when the word unfair was still part of the lexicon of cricket players and followers.

Zaheer joined Majid at the crease. Lillee was bowling his fastest spell of the season now. As Zaheer gloved a nasty lifter for 4, and barely survived Lillee’s onslaught, the camera focused in on Majid at the non-striker’s end. It showed him casually inspecting the sole of his shoe, prompting the Australian commentator to exclaim ‘And there is Majid Khan, very casually examining the soles of his shoes while there is mayhem going on at the other end!’ It was typical of the man, his approach to life and the game.

Walker bowled a tight line and spell, giving nothing away, so the action really was on Lillee. Soon the man in the broad sun-hat was back on strike against the champion fast bowler. A couple of fast deliveries flew past the outside edge “and we see Majid very casually playing and missing down the wrong line” was the TV commentator’s sole observation for a while, so absorbing was the confrontation. A couple of precision laced bouncers followed which saw Majid drop his hands and casually sway back as the ball flew past his nose. This was typical Majid, most often a languidly executed hook, occasionally the ‘Bobby Simpson style sway back’ as the commentators referred to it, but never the ducking style used by the majority of batsmen.

Now came the climactic moments of this confrontation. Majid tried to push a ball through the vacant off side field - “the ball was so fast it only went to point off the middle of the bat!” exclaimed Keith Miller on television. Next ball, quick and rising on off stump, Majid lazily square cut for four. One of the fielders from the slip cordon had to jog all the way to the boundary to retrieve the ball. Lillee responded with a nigh perfect bouncer – not too short, and headed straight for the batsman’s face. You almost yearned for the batsmen to escape unhurt. Instead, he swivelled lazily, you saw his bat move in a long lazy arc and his body and toes end up pointing in the direction of the departed ball. “There’s a fieldsman down there at long leg “ was the commentator’s observation, but he had no chance. It was some way above him, and some further distance back into the rows of the Sydney Cricket Ground.

A delivery later, Lillee repeated the bouncer with similar results. The fieldsman wasn’t close, the ball bounced once and landed in nearly the same rows of seats of the SCG. Riche Benaud on TV, ever the analyst, had the sequence replayed a few times. “He is a most remarkable hooker, but here we see him quite deliberately lift the ball into the air – not one of his better shots!” That may have been true but perhaps rolling the wrist was never an option that day. Not even for MJK.

The fortunes of the other batsmen couldn’t have been more different. Zaheer barely managed to evade a couple of nasty bouncers, was struck on the glove from one good length ball that necessitated application of an ice pack and a delay, and caught in the slips of another. Mushtaq barely survived the rest of the over. Between the three of them, Sadiq, Zaheer and Mushtaq did not lay bat on ball once during the course of Lillee’s spell. Sadiq managed a glove once, Zaheer thrice, but that was that! This was no huge discredit. A champion fast bowler had vividly demonstrated just why he was one of the game’s all-time greats.

The match finished when Majid swivelled and pulled Walker to the square leg boundary for four. Pakistan were 32 for 2 after 7.2 overs of the most high calibre cricket you could ever wish to witness, and one of the best Pakistan-Australia series was drawn 1-1.

At the awards ceremony afterwards, there was much praise for Pakistan’s fighting spirit and Imran Khan’s tremendous bowling. On TV, Keith Miller was overjoyed and hardly able to constrain himself “Did u see that six?” was his first question to any late arriving commentator. And contrary to common perception, Australian fans warmly applauded Pakistan’s victory. Near the fag end of the awards ceremony Majid, a taciturn man at best and never one to seek publicity, took the stage to applaud a “great fast bowler and great competitor. I present my hat to Dennis Lillee”. It was a fitting end to a wonderful series in which sport was the ultimate winner.




Postscript:

Some twenty years later, I saw a young boy, no more than ten years of age, shyly approach Majid at a social gathering and ask him a question. A brief conversation followed. The young boy looked disappointed, so I asked him about the topic. ‘I asked him if he hit Lillee for 6,’ said the young fan. ‘And so?’ I queried. ‘Oh, he is too modest!’ was the answer, ‘All he said were two words - top edge!’

It may be modesty, but you would never doubt MJK’s word. As Neville Cardus once observed, so often the cricketer and the man are one and the same.