Ilyas
13th January 2007, 07:13
The Match That Transformed Saeed Anwar’s Future
By ILyas Hasan Choudry
Saeed Anwar was already 18 years old, when he first played in a 1st class match. At that time, this was considered a late stage in Pakistan for a future world-class player to begin 1st class cricket. His father wanted him to become a famous cricketer, while Saeed Anwar wanted to become a cricketer plus computer engineer. He was naturally gifted cricketer plus a very good student as well at school.
I have played tapped-tennis ball cricket with Saeed’s father and he was a very fast bowler with short run-up.
Now since he wanted to be an engineer as well, Saeed Anwar also started to take some interest in Cricket only when he made it sure that he was going to get admitted into computer sciences at the NED University Karachi: That was the year, he played his first highest level match.
Initially when he played, Saeed Anwar was famous for economical bowling spells with his left-arm spin bowling and used to bat 4th number or down. He could not make it to the 1st Youth World Cup in Australia in Feb.-Mar. 1988, when Pakistan lost to Aussies in the final. In that World Cup, these players later on went on to play for their respective countries:
Australia: Stuart Law, Alan Mullally (who represented England at senior level)
Bangladesh: Amin-ul Islam
England: Mike Atherton, Mark Ramprakash, Nasser Hussain, Chris Lewis.
India: Nayan Mongia, Hirwani,
Netherlands: Tim de Leede
New Zealand: Shane Thomson, Chris Cairns, Lee Germon
Pakistan: Zahoor Elahi, Basit Ali, Inzamam ul-Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed, Shakeel Khan, Aaquib Javed
Sri Lanka: Sanjeeva Ranatunga, Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Hathurusinghe
West Indies: Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams
Now 1988/89 was Saeed Anwar’s second season and since he had reached the age of 20, this was the last season to do something with his natural talent, otherwise he would have got dejected and most likely would have faded away.
That 1988/89 season, Saeed Anwar was not played in the first match in the Wills’ Cup One-Dy Tournament, but was played in the other four games and played just one good innings of an important 46 in a second last ball win for his United Bank Team (UBL). In the semi-final, he failed again.
As such when the Final of Will’s Cup between UBL and PIA came, Saeed Anwar’s confidence was very low. This match was to be shown nationwide on TV and with Waseem Akram at his peak and playing for PIA, players in UBL team like Moin-ul-Atiq, Mansoor AKhtar, Inzimam-ul-Haq, Ali Zia and Saeed Anwar were all wishing to score well to impress the selectors. Batting first, PIA was all out of the last ball of the last 45th over for 228 with Rizwan-uz-Zaman making 100 and Waseem Akram 33. UBL top batsmen got bogged down by tight bowling of Waseem Akram, Waseem Haider, Zahid Ahmed and Rashid Khan.
I still remember famous English Commentator Iftikhar Ahmed (Ifti), who was a very good friend of Imran Khan, was doing commentary. Saeed Anwar stepped into the playing field. Saeed played straight and gave Raees Ahmed stance, Raees made 94 before being yorked by Waseem Akram. At that stage, UBL needed 37 in 3 overs with Waseem Akram to bowl two of them.
Next thing Pakistan saw was Saeed Anwar hitting straight over the head of Waseem Akram two enormous sixes and two fours to totally change the equation. Although Saeed Anwar got out of Zahid Ahmed’s bowling for 36, but match eventually got tied with UBL also scoring 228 for the loss of 6 wickets: UBL were declared winners of this final because they lost less number of wickets.
Although scores of 46 and 36 were the only notable scores of Saeed Anwar, but to hit twenty runs off one over of the worlds’ best bowler of that time indeed showed the immense natural talent Saeed Anwar had. And that meant going under Imran Khan’s direct mentorship. Imran Khan calling the find of the decade took him to Australia, where he said he should play as opener, as there was no place in the middle order for him. Saeed Anwar showed few glimpses of absolute brilliance, but succumbed to the pressure of Aussies cricket, where Windies were the other opponents. Next season he returned with a century and 67 against Kiwis in Pakistan in one dayers, but was not played in test matches. He scored a few normal one day international scores of 20 to 30 runs and scored zeros in both the innings of his first test match against Windies.
However through out this time of initial almost total failure, Imran Khan kept saying that Saeed Anwar is indeed the find of the decade and his belief was mainly due to the fact that if a batsman under total pressure can hit Waseem Akram for 20 runs in one over, he must be someone special. So it was just that very innings for UBL against PIA, which kept Imran playing him and eventually he became a star for Pakistan.
Saeed Anwar got a mysterious sickness in 1992 otherwise he would have been in the squad for World Cup, which Pakistan won in Australia. After his comeback from that sickness, he never looked back. He is still just 38 years old and would have played more for Pakistan had he not got into the Real and Best Passion of Dawah of Islam.
By ILyas Hasan Choudry
Saeed Anwar was already 18 years old, when he first played in a 1st class match. At that time, this was considered a late stage in Pakistan for a future world-class player to begin 1st class cricket. His father wanted him to become a famous cricketer, while Saeed Anwar wanted to become a cricketer plus computer engineer. He was naturally gifted cricketer plus a very good student as well at school.
I have played tapped-tennis ball cricket with Saeed’s father and he was a very fast bowler with short run-up.
Now since he wanted to be an engineer as well, Saeed Anwar also started to take some interest in Cricket only when he made it sure that he was going to get admitted into computer sciences at the NED University Karachi: That was the year, he played his first highest level match.
Initially when he played, Saeed Anwar was famous for economical bowling spells with his left-arm spin bowling and used to bat 4th number or down. He could not make it to the 1st Youth World Cup in Australia in Feb.-Mar. 1988, when Pakistan lost to Aussies in the final. In that World Cup, these players later on went on to play for their respective countries:
Australia: Stuart Law, Alan Mullally (who represented England at senior level)
Bangladesh: Amin-ul Islam
England: Mike Atherton, Mark Ramprakash, Nasser Hussain, Chris Lewis.
India: Nayan Mongia, Hirwani,
Netherlands: Tim de Leede
New Zealand: Shane Thomson, Chris Cairns, Lee Germon
Pakistan: Zahoor Elahi, Basit Ali, Inzamam ul-Haq, Mushtaq Ahmed, Shakeel Khan, Aaquib Javed
Sri Lanka: Sanjeeva Ranatunga, Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Hathurusinghe
West Indies: Brian Lara, Jimmy Adams
Now 1988/89 was Saeed Anwar’s second season and since he had reached the age of 20, this was the last season to do something with his natural talent, otherwise he would have got dejected and most likely would have faded away.
That 1988/89 season, Saeed Anwar was not played in the first match in the Wills’ Cup One-Dy Tournament, but was played in the other four games and played just one good innings of an important 46 in a second last ball win for his United Bank Team (UBL). In the semi-final, he failed again.
As such when the Final of Will’s Cup between UBL and PIA came, Saeed Anwar’s confidence was very low. This match was to be shown nationwide on TV and with Waseem Akram at his peak and playing for PIA, players in UBL team like Moin-ul-Atiq, Mansoor AKhtar, Inzimam-ul-Haq, Ali Zia and Saeed Anwar were all wishing to score well to impress the selectors. Batting first, PIA was all out of the last ball of the last 45th over for 228 with Rizwan-uz-Zaman making 100 and Waseem Akram 33. UBL top batsmen got bogged down by tight bowling of Waseem Akram, Waseem Haider, Zahid Ahmed and Rashid Khan.
I still remember famous English Commentator Iftikhar Ahmed (Ifti), who was a very good friend of Imran Khan, was doing commentary. Saeed Anwar stepped into the playing field. Saeed played straight and gave Raees Ahmed stance, Raees made 94 before being yorked by Waseem Akram. At that stage, UBL needed 37 in 3 overs with Waseem Akram to bowl two of them.
Next thing Pakistan saw was Saeed Anwar hitting straight over the head of Waseem Akram two enormous sixes and two fours to totally change the equation. Although Saeed Anwar got out of Zahid Ahmed’s bowling for 36, but match eventually got tied with UBL also scoring 228 for the loss of 6 wickets: UBL were declared winners of this final because they lost less number of wickets.
Although scores of 46 and 36 were the only notable scores of Saeed Anwar, but to hit twenty runs off one over of the worlds’ best bowler of that time indeed showed the immense natural talent Saeed Anwar had. And that meant going under Imran Khan’s direct mentorship. Imran Khan calling the find of the decade took him to Australia, where he said he should play as opener, as there was no place in the middle order for him. Saeed Anwar showed few glimpses of absolute brilliance, but succumbed to the pressure of Aussies cricket, where Windies were the other opponents. Next season he returned with a century and 67 against Kiwis in Pakistan in one dayers, but was not played in test matches. He scored a few normal one day international scores of 20 to 30 runs and scored zeros in both the innings of his first test match against Windies.
However through out this time of initial almost total failure, Imran Khan kept saying that Saeed Anwar is indeed the find of the decade and his belief was mainly due to the fact that if a batsman under total pressure can hit Waseem Akram for 20 runs in one over, he must be someone special. So it was just that very innings for UBL against PIA, which kept Imran playing him and eventually he became a star for Pakistan.
Saeed Anwar got a mysterious sickness in 1992 otherwise he would have been in the squad for World Cup, which Pakistan won in Australia. After his comeback from that sickness, he never looked back. He is still just 38 years old and would have played more for Pakistan had he not got into the Real and Best Passion of Dawah of Islam.