Zaheer’s epic at Edgbaston could inspire Pakistan

n the heart of Midland is Warwickshire, known as the Shakespeare county, with Edgbaston in Birmingham as its home of cricket.

In the sixteenth century the legendary English bard was known to have had an interest in the developing game, references of which could be found in many of his writings of the period.

Had he been living in this age, there would have been pages and pages on this best of English games which later was eulogised by men of letter in their poetry and prose.

I wonder what their thoughts would have been had they witnessed Zaheer Abbas playing his first innings in a Test at Edgbaston on his first tour to England.

For those who watched him bat in that 1971 Test when he carved out his epic 274 off a competent English attack, it was sheer joy. As for the scribes, it was quite simply ‘poetry in motion’.

It was a Test in which two of the Pakistan batsmen Mushtaq Mohammad and Asif Iqbal also collected a hundred each as did English batsmen Brian Luckhurst and Alan Knott in a drawn match.

None of those fine innings could, however, be compared to Zaheer’s masterly knock which is still etched in the memory of all those present at Edgbaston that fine day.

I was not a full time cricket journalist then but had the privilege of being there amongst the crowd who watched in awe as this slim looking young man with long side-burns and rimmed glasses pulverized the English bowling with his sweetly timed cover drives and cuts off the back foot.