There has been some discussion lately via email on an extraordinary game of cricket which took place fifty years ago.  Richard Heller and Khan Shehram Eusufzye wrote it up a few months ago and I’m happy to bring it to a wider audience.

By Richard Heller and Khan Shehram Eusufzye 

December 1964. Re-elected President Lyndon Johnson plans to escalate the bombing of Vietnam. Students stage a massive sit-in at Berkeley, California. The Beatles release an album with the self-mocking title “Beatles For Sale”. Dera Ismail Khan is then a sleepy market town in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province: official population around 47,000, famous for its dates and mangoes and for finely-made lacquerwood products and cloth sarongs.

This unremarkable place was the starting point of an epic journey by a group of eager teenagers.  The first leg was a ride in a lurching rural bus or a lift on a lorry, on a poor road, crossing the Indus river on a pontoon bridge.  This took three hours or more in the heat and dust to reach the nearest rail station at Dera Dariya Khan, just 15 miles away. From there, they took the branch line to Kundian, around 50 miles to the north. Then they waited four or five hours for the mainline train from Rawalpindi to Lahore. After a sleepless overnight journey, they arrived in the great city for the first time and headed for the cheapest hostel they could find.

But these hardships meant little to the young travellers.  They were about to make history as the first representatives of Dera Ismail Khan  in a first-class cricket match. They knew that they faced tough opposition in the preliminary round of the Ayub Trophy, a relatively new competition named after Pakistan’s military dictator, Field Marshal Ayub Khan. The Railways had a high-quality team, with at least seven players in the frame for international selection.

The young men might have done better to miss their trains. The Railways beat them by an innings and 851 runs. It was the biggest victory in cricket history. It seems certain to stay in the record books for ever.

This performance was cited by Norman Preston, editor of Wisden Cricketers Almanack for 1978,  in a sniffy note. “Even ardent followers of cricket in Pakistan are beginning to criticise the proliferation of national and world records standing to their country’s name. They say the blame must be placed on the shoulders of their Board of Control, which, it has been said, has repeatedly allowed teams with no first-class status to compete in first-class tournaments.”

It is hard to disagree. Pakistan’s cricket authorities have regularly handed out first-class status to weak teams, partly to give more opportunities to cricketers, especially those outside the major centres of Karachi and Lahore, but partly also through political patronage. Before the 1964-65 season the Board of Control decided to extend the Ayub Trophy with a preliminary knock-out tournament in three zones. This gave a sudden opening to first-class cricket to many new teams which were not ready for it. There were many heavy defeats in the Trophy that year, but none as hopeless as Dera Ismail Khan’s.

Yet the match was much more than a freak from Pakistan’s cricket politics. We found and interviewed two of the survivors of the Dera Ismail Khan team. They tell a different story – of a group of teenaged friends who played cricket for fun and at their own expense, pitched into battle against mighty opponents who gave them no quarter.

Brigadier M T K Dotani appears as Taimur Hasan on the published scorecard: he opened the batting in both innings and bowled two overs. He lives in a housing complex for retired officers in Rawalpindi, surrounded by mementoes of a distinguished military career. There are few cricket souvenirs apart from the team photograph taken on the eve of the match. He identified himself sitting second from the left. There is no need for him to point out the distinctive profile of his friend Mr Shahid Javaid Khan, sitting second from right.  He was the number three batsman, on the scorecard as Javed Khan.

Dera Ismail Khan cricket team 1964: on the eve of their historic match

Both men are vigorous and eager to share their cricketing memories. They both laugh readily, but also offer strong views about the past and present state of Pakistan cricket.

Brigadier Dotani was a student at Government College, Dera Ismail Khan, one of a group of friends since childhood who loved cricket. When lessons finished they would dash home and then bicycle, in the blazing summer heat, to play pick-up matches or hold practice nets at the big former parade ground which the army let them use. They had to do almost everything themselves, collecting kit, preparing the pitches, finding older people who ready to umpire.

Eventually, a government official, Syed Ali, set up a local divisional cricket association, which supported them with some gloves and balls, a kitbag and a man to put up the nets. Even so, they had very little competitive cricket. The nearest local team was at Bannu, about 90 miles away, or even further at Kohat or Peshawar University, which had a fine ground with a lush green wicket.

Shahid Javaid Khan was an engineering student at the University, a keen cricketer looking forward to its participation as one of the new teams invited into the Ayub Trophy. He was devastated to learn that their sports director had withdrawn them, for lack of funds. He discovered that Dera Ismail Khan would be eligible to replace them, and hurried over to the town to sign up their team. Then he had to secure their approval as replacements from the divisional cricket authorities. For this, he enlisted the help of his uncle, an influential lawyer. He did not believe that the DIK team could meet first-class standards, “but when he saw my eagerness and desperation, he asked me to come over to his place in Bannu.” He convinced his uncle who helped him complete the registration formalities. Under great time pressure, he put together a team of college players from DI Khan and Bannu and three or four Peshawar University players, including himself. At the last minute the University decided to field a team after all. Although Shahid decided to stick by Dera Ismail Khan, they had lost three of their best players. They were hurriedly replaced by enthusiasts from the pick-up matches on the parade ground.

Dera Ismail Khan nearly lost Taimur as well, and the Government College captain, Mohammad Hanif. They had exams looming and their parents did not want them to play. “We stayed behind with a heavy heart,” said Brigadier Dotani, “but then the team discovered in Lahore that they were playing Railways and sent us an urgent message to join them.” They prevailed on their parents, and completed the day/night journey to reach the others at their “pathetic hotel.”

The team had a day of sightseeing and moviegoing before they were due to play at the fine Moghalpura Institute Ground, used by the Railways. It was opulent by their standards, lusher than the Peshawar University ground and with abundant spectator space limited only by the railway line at one end, where trains passed every ten minutes or so. This distraction would be another home advantage for the Railways team, not that they needed it.

For the first time, the DI Khan players – the oldest was 20 – sensed what they were up against. They were relieved to loss the toss and bowl first. Their bowlers were their main strength and they hoped to make their opponents work for runs. They opened with their youngest player, the left-arm medium-pacer Inayatullah, aged 15. At the other end was the quicker, right-arm Anwar Khan. He made an early breakthrough, dismissing the Railway opener Saeed Butt for just 20. But then “they totally dominated us, taking boundaries at will,” said Brigadier Dotani. At the end of the first day, Railways had made 419 for 2. “That was a huge score for us,” said Shahid Javaid Khan. “We expected them to declare. We practised batting in our hotel.”

No such relief. The Railway captain, Bashir Haider, batted right through the second day to allow his batsmen to fill their boots. At the close they were 825 for six. Ijaz Hussain, the wicketkeeper and opening batsman had made a century, Javed Babar a double century, and Pervez Akthar was not out 301. It was his only first-class hundred. Still no declaration: Bashir Haider batted on into the third day to allow his number 8, Mohammad Sharif, to complete his only first-class century.

At last the declaration arrived on 910 for six – the first time any Pakistani side had passed 900. There were inevitable fielding lapses, but Shahid Javaid Khan took a fine catch at long on in front of the railway line, which had the Railways wobbling uncertainly on 548 for five.

The young Dera Ismail Khan side had stuck to their task, bowling 172 overs. The scoring rate of 5.29 an over was high by the standards of the time, but far from contemptible. The 15-year-old Inayatullah bowled the most overs, 59, which produced one wicket for 279; Anwar Khan had three for 295 off 46 overs, Qaiser Khan, another right-arm seam bowler, had one for 175 off 43 overs and the slow-medium Fazal Matin one for 110 off 22 overs. (The remaining two fill-in overs were bowled by Taimur Hasan, a spinner). The four main bowlers achieved eight maidens amid the carnage.

Had Bashir Haider declared too late? He opened the bowling himself. Taimur Hasan went out to face him. Bashir was one of the fastest bowlers in Pakistan. During Pakistan’s disastrous tour of England in 1962 the captain, Javed Burki, had begged the selectors to send out Bashir to reinforce his depleted attack – but they thought him too wild. The teenaged opener was facing him without a helmet (then unknown), wearing tennis shoes. One spectator was Safdar Ali Shah, a former captain of his college team. He briefed him about Bashir, adding encouragingly “if he hits you on the pad it will break your bones.”

Taimur played Bashir’s loosener confidently enough. The next one landed, disappeared over him, and was taken by the wicketkeeper nearly 20 yards back with a cartwheel. “I had never faced a bowler of that pace,” he remembered. “He took a huge jump and had a very offensive style, like Jeff Thomson. I snicked one and it split second slip’s hand. I said to myself ‘forget about style, save your life.’”

He survived for a while, until Bashir produced a straight ball and bowled him for a duck – “fortunately”. But the real damage was done by his partner Afaq Khan, another pace bowler of quality, who took seven for 14. Dera Ismail Khan were all out for 32 in 15.3 overs. Six Dera Ismail Khan batsmen failed to score, and only one, the tailender Anwar Khan, reached double figures. One alone defied the two pace bowlers: Qaiser Khan became the tenth first-class batsman to be given out “obstructing the field.”

Shahid Javaid Khan was at the other end for this piece of history. “He was quite a temperamental player. He came over to me and told me that balls were coming to him at the speed of bullets. He was getting frustrated. I don’t know what got into his head when he blocked a yorker and then kicked the ball off the pitch. The Railways team complained and the umpire gave him out.” Both of Qaiser’s colleagues feel today that the appeal was a little unnecessary.

With a lead of 878, Bashir Haider did not agonize long over enforcing the follow-on.

He did not even bother to take a new ball, but simply tossed the old one (fewer than 16 overs old) to his spinners, the slow left-arm Nazir Khan and Ahad Khan, whom many fans rated the best leg-spinner in Pakistan. Nazir was spanked for 18 off six wicketless overs, but his partner caused mayhem at the other end. He bowled Taimur for his second duck of the match. The mercurial Qaiser got himself stumped off him, and Jamil Ahmed, the DI Khan wicketkeeper, was run out for 10. Ahad dismissed all the other batsmen without assistance from a fielder, and finished with nine wickets for 7 runs.

Dera Ismail Khan’s second innings closed on 27 – five short of their first, and they had lasted three fewer overs.

The young team made the wearisome journey home, thinking themselves fortunate that they had brought no travelling supporters and that the few scanty match reports had not mentioned their names. DI Khan’s next scheduled matches – against Rawalpindi teams  – were cancelled. They did not reappear in first-class competitions until the 1980s. They then played nine matches, drawing one and losing all the others. Seven were innings defeats, although never on the scale of their predecessors. There is a thriving cricket scene now in Dera Ismail Khan, at divisional and under-19 level, with a home ground which it never had before.

None of the young record-breakers ever got another chance at first-class level. Shahid Javaid Khan returned to Peshawar University. He played a few non-first-class matches for them and then many more at club level and for departmental teams in a career as an engineer in public service.

Brigadier Dotani came heartbreakingly close to a second life in cricket.  Stationed as an army officer in East Pakistan he re-invented himself as a pace bowler – perhaps a psychic revenge for his battering by Bashir Haider. He guested regularly for Pakistan International Airlines teams and put fear into their opponents. His best performance – seven wickets for 18 in 14 overs – was watched by a legendary coach, Master Aziz, who had tutored the great Test-playing Mohammad brothers. Master Aziz asked him what he was trying to bowl. “I told him I didn’t know – I just held it like so and let it go.”

The coach told him he was bowling a fast legcutter – the stock delivery of Pakistan’s greatest bowler, Fazal Mahmood. Master Aziz  referred him to Mushtaq and Sadiq Mohammad, leading a national practice session in Karachi, and he arranged to go there on his way to an officer’s training course in Quetta. He bowled in front of the Mohammad brothers, who were impressed but wanted to see more the next day.

Cruelly, it rained. As it did for the next two days, by which time he had to report to Quetta. His subsequent career saw him become a personal pilot to General Zia ul-Haq, chief of staff and President (fortunately not in the aircraft which crashed and killed Zia) and he retired as a brigadier.

The two friends were therefore marooned: their first-class careers ended in that one match for Dera Ismail Khan, which yielded one solitary run. They are still glad to have played it, as part of a team that simply loved cricket.

The complex where Brigadier Dotani lives has several discreet posters with improving mottoes. One seems especially fitting for the survivors of the most one-sided sporting contest in history: True Bravery Is To Overcome Anger.

Richard Heller is a cricketer who would have missed selection for Dera Ismail Khan – a medium-pace swing bowler who moves the ball both ways off the bat. He has written two cricket-themed novels, A Tale Of Ten Wickets and The Network, and recently assisted Peter Oborne’s forthcoming  history of Pakistan cricket, Wounded Tiger. He was a finalist on BBC Television’s Mastermind with Gary Sobers as a special subject, but fatally forgot where the great man took five wickets in five balls. Add if desired: Kuala Lumpur March 1964 for Commonwealth XI v Malaysia (not first-class).

 Khan Shehram Eusufzye is a Pakistani journalist, who studied at Government College University and Beaconhouse National University, both in Lahore. His devotion to cricket combined with assiduous research skills enabled him to track down the survivors of Dera Ismail Khan’s epic encounter.