“Today, at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium young right hander from Multan scored his second consecutive ODI ton against the touring Lankans to seal the series 4-1”.
My introduction to cricket and Inzzy’s opening to the National Team goes pretty much hand to hand. Relocating to Pakistan immediately gifted me a newly found love for the game of the gentlemen.
Labeled as yet another Imran’s hand-picked tiger, Inzzy scripted history at the biggest stage of world cricket by playing two knocks which made him an overnight hero and talk of the town in a matter of 5 days.
Imran lifted the cup for Pakistan and Inzzy emerged as a new batting hero for his country!
Though, immediately afterwards reality struck Big Guy on his debut tour to The Great Britain when he found real version of the game tad difficult to adopt right away and raised few eye brows suspecting his approach only for them to boil down when Inzzy landed his first major test contribution - coming at #6 with 5/39 & a deficit of 9 runs punctuating the score sheet Big Man scored 43% of Pakistan second inning total and supplemented 2 Ws with something to bowl and to pen a famous victory in NZ’93 subsequently.
Inzzy v Lara was the slogan once Team Pakistan landed in the Caribbean Islands and Shair-e-Multan held the better of two individually by not only saving the embarrassment of a 3-0 whitewash but in the process also scoring his first hundred in 8th test appearance. Not to mention his input in helping Pakistan drawing a bilateral series in WI for the first time.
That hundred at St John's, Antigua set the tone for Inzamam-ul-Haq and Pakistan for years to come by!
Void created by the absence of another legend Javed Miandad was aptly balanced by Inzzy with a demeanor only reminiscent of the modern greats. The likes of Salims, Ejazs, Saeeds faded into the ultimate twilight of their careers but there always remained a solid hope that Big Guy is still there, able to sail the young troops.
Through out Inzzy’s career captaincy changed numerous hands (of course, till he himself became one); match fixing scandals ballooned to unprecedented heights and internal rifts seemed to have no visible end BUT in the midst of all the usual turmoil of Pakistan cricket Inzamam by and large played the role of a lone ranger successfully – not to undermine the contributions of the Salims, Ejazs and 2 Lefties, former saw the home team home more often than any other batter wearing green blazer in 90’s!
Like all the great batsmen, Inzzy also hit a slump in form, starting from 1996 home season and stretched well into the first half of 1999. For best part of 30 month sleeping giant was made to sleep more often than not, with average humbling tinge below 30 Inzzy was made to sweat even by the likes of Zimbabweans’ (with all due respect for the better Zims of 90’s). Simultaneous slump in the shorter version of the game (mid 1996 – late 1997) when he only able to muttered net 25 runs in 29 complete innings added further insult to the injury. Although, he reclaimed his ODI form comparatively quickly but still his compounded effect was missed badly by Pakistan during that period of time.
During this period (late 1996 – early 1999) Inzzy played 21 tests to yield almost 900 runs and subtracting a comfortable home run against visiting West Indians walloped the per innings scoring down to mere 22. This indeed was a rough time for the big guy and few even went onto to claim that he will be yet another case of underutilization of talent and may not be able to touch heights he seemed destined after his initial years. But as they when the going gets tough, the tough gets going, Inzzy shrugged off all the shackles of disintegrated form by scoring his first double hundred in the final of Asian Test Championship.
Nevertheless, by the time 90’s closed in Inzzy was still considered to be talent yet to bloom with full colors… An average of 43.xx appears good but not exemplary and the fact that 9 times he fall in the range of 80-99 showcased the reasons behind his 8 centuries from 97 innings and a rather modest conversion rate of 25% from 58 tests.
That’s been said,
The Turn of the century witnessed Imzamam-ul-Haq’s image-shift from potentially great towards one par excellence!
In all of 62 tests that he played in current century oversee him adding 12 net runs to his average – 55.57; complimented by 17 hundreds and a far better conversion rate of 43%. In spite of the fact that Inzzy scored merely with an average of 32.xx in his last 5 test series’ without a three digit score…
In a statistical perspective, 70% of Inzzy’s test centuries resulted in being match-winning ones. Though, critics tried rationalizing off this celebrated percentile by pointing out the brigade of Wasims, Waqars, Shoaibs, Musthaqs & Saqlains who often helped Pakistan bowling out their opposition cheaply.
Notwithstanding above, bowlers can only march towards victory once ‘runs’ are on the board and Inzamam-ul-Haq’s average of 78.17 in 76 innings of 49 triumphant tests cleanly demonstrates his instrumentality in winning matches, statistically too!
Be it the,
National Stadium of 1994 – 58* at #8 to secure last home test victory against Australia.
Harare Sports Club of 1995 – 40% of entire team’s score to save the embarrassment of test series defeat in Zimbabwe.
Sydney Cricket Ground 1995 – top scored in Pakistan’s second innings to set-up Greens last test victory in the land of the juggernauts.
Lord’s 1996 – 148 out of a total of 340 laid the platform for 2Ws and Mushtaq to script successive Lords victories.
Manchester 2001 – Holding the reins from precarious 4/92 & 3/63 to help post 403 & 323 by contributing 114 & 85! Hence, setting up another last victory, this time in The Great Britain…
Lahore 2002 – 329, gradual step up on the ladder by adding another feather to his elusive cap.
Multan 2003 – 138*, arguably Inzzy’s best effort! given the sensitivity of the circumstances; embarrassment of becoming the first one to lose a test to Bangladesh, that too at home. Inzzy’s comeback game after a nightmare of a WC and if there was some room for relaxation it was balanced out with the venue being his home ground
Bangalore 2005 – 184, admittedly that memorable win was a combined effort but so was the instrumentality of this inning, raced along at a SR of 70.xx that it does not only complimented Younis on equal note but paced the game so nicely that India in spite of big first inning score still had nearly 100 overs to negotiate.
Port Elizabeth 2007 – 92 at #8 in a low scoring thriller which ultimately made all the difference and helped Pakistan registered their yet another last victory in South of Africa…
Unlike the first half of his career, Inzzy together with the talent of 2 Ys forged a highly formidable middle-order for Pakistan which oversaw, and at time put out of sight many weak opening stands and late order tumbles to secure safe deals for the team.
Onus now will be on Yousuf & Younis to carry on the legacy by nudging the young ones alongside them.
To say, Inzzy maintained a clean slate in all of 16 years shall be a statement hinged with naivety. Starting from infamous Sahara 1996 to the findings of match-fixing commissions, Inzzy, particularly find himself in the thick of precarious and at times funny incidents once he put on the thorny cap of leading Pakistan - starting from initial refusal to be Tendulkar’s backup in ICC super test to dismissals in the form of hit-wicket and handling the ball - from Oval’s fiasco (unarguably the biggest) to the subsequent ban and the ultimate showdown engineered by minnows Ireland in the misfortune event of the Carribbean WC pretty much sealed the International arena for a legend who was still hungry to carry on…
In these final lines, I may say that although Inzamam couldn’t able to fulfill all of his individual objectives, he was allowed to leave the show with grace. In my eye, becoming the first since Imran Khan to leave the ground head high and self-esteem unscratched.
Inzzy, you will be missed…
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