The many facets of Imran Khan the cricketer and Sri Lanka

Cricketer Imran Khan

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The visit of the Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan has aroused great interest among the communities of Sri Lanka largely not because he is a politician but for the fact that he was an icon in the cricket world leading his country to their only ICC Cricket World Cup victory in 1992.

Imran Khan and Sri Lanka cricket are quite synonymous if one is to trace back his playing days as an all-round cricketer of repute.

There are many facets that bind this great cricketer to Sri Lanka. In his first meeting with Sri Lanka in the third Test at his home town in Lahore in March 1982 Imran stamped his class with career best innings (8/58) and match figures (14/116). 

His pace and reverse-swinging yorkers proved too much for a Sri Lankan team who were the minnows of Test cricket at the time having played their inaugural Test against England only a month earlier. They were bundled out for totals of 240 and 158 with Pakistan winning by an innings and 102 runs. Only Roy Dias stood tall amongst the Lankan batters, scoring a majestic 109 of 179 balls in the first innings. 

Imran continued to be Sri Lanka’s nemesis when in the 1983 World Cup match at Leeds he once again proved to be a stumbling block on this occasion with the bat. Imran rescued Pakistan from a perilous 43-5 to a respectable 235-7 by scoring his only century in ODI cricket – an unbeaten 102 off 133 balls (11 fours). Pakistan went onto win the contest by 11 runs with the Lankan batting falling to the wiles of leg-spinner Abdul Qadir who took five wickets.

Imran made his first visit to Sri Lanka as captain of the Pakistan team in 1986 and the tour turned out to be an acrimonious one with Imran calling the Sri Lankan umpires “blatant and dishonest” as the three-match Test series ended in a one-all draw. The series was not without incidents; there was plenty of it to attract a movie thriller.

The first Test at Asgiriya which Sri Lanka lost by an innings saw an altercation between Arjuna Ranatunga and Imran that led to play being held up for 30 minutes on the fourth day. The incident happened when umpire Alan Felsinger disallowed a bat-pad catch off Tauseef Ahmed when Ranatunga was on eight.

This led to Ranatunga and the umpire being insulted and called ‘names’ by Imran and his vice-captain Javed Miandad, and Ranatunga walking off the field with his partner Roy Dias. The game was resumed after 30 minutes after Imran had apologised to the umpires.

“I am very sad it happened. It is very unfortunate. We all thought the batsman was out and our anger was directed mostly at him. These things happen in the heat of the moment and in international cricket it is quite common. I hate such incidents to take place. We have not come here to win or lose, but to play the game in good spirit,” Imran was to say after the match.

The second Test played at the CCC grounds was marred by a stone thrown by a spectator at Miandad. The Pakistan vice-captain was walking back to the pavilion after being ruled out lbw when a spectator provoked the incident by throwing a stone which fortunately did not hit Miandad. 

But the batsman angered by it charged into the crowd from where the stone was thrown with bat raised and had to be restrained by his team members and the policemen on duty to prevent an ugly incident from taking place. Sri Lanka went onto win the Test by eight wickets and level the series 1-all.

Imran however came down hard on that incident and the defeat and said the root cause of strained relationship with the Sri Lankan team and crowd reaction was poor umpiring. “I hate to play in Sri Lanka. I have not enjoyed my cricket at all because of blatant dishonest umpiring,” said the Pakistan captain, who became a vocal advocate for neutral umpires after this series.

Pakistan threatened to pull out of the tour, but saner counsel prevailed and the tour was saved after Sri Lanka Cricket Board President Gamini Dissanayake discussed the matter with the Pakistan captain, manager and the Ambassador for Pakistan in Sri Lanka.

Pakistan missed a golden opportunity of winning the third Test played at the P. Sara Oval and the series due to a ragged fielding display that saw them drop six catches (4 of them offered by Ranatunga) and two stumpings that allowed Sri Lanka to wriggle out with a draw.

Sri Lanka later went onto beat Pakistan in the final and win the Asia Cup 50-over tournament where neutral umpires from England Dickie Bird and David Shepherd officiated. In his parting words Imran said, “Umpiring holds the key to good match atmosphere. We experienced it in the Asia Cup and invitation tournaments where neutral umpires officiated.”

Imran never made a Test hundred against Sri Lanka – his highest score was an unbeaten 93 in the first Test at Sialkot of the 1991-92 series which was his last. In fact it was in this series that he recorded a duck in his final Test innings at Faisalabad falling leg before wicket to fast bowler Kapila Wijegunawardene who also dismissed him in the first innings for 22. A few months later the 1992 Cricket World Cup followed in Australia/New Zealand and Pakistan had to win their last group game against Sri Lanka at the WACA, Perth to progress into the next round. The match turned out to be a closely-contested affair with Pakistan reaching the winning target in the last over with five wickets to spare.

Once they qualified Pakistan had a dream run in the semi-finals and the final culminating in the greatest achievement in the career of the Prime Minister by winning the World Cup at the MCG, beating England in the final.  

We extend a warm welcome to a true friend of Sri Lanka Imran Khan as the Prime Minister of Pakistan and hope that when he returns he will take back happier memories than when he visited us as the captain of Pakistan.

Imran Khan’s last Test innings – he falls lbw to Kapila Wijegunawardene (extreme right) at Faisalabad in 1992; Hashan Tillakaratne is the wicket-keeper congratulating the bowler