For a batsman like myself in the sunset of a career whose noon was little brighter than the planet Pluto’s it is rarely advisable to accept an invitation to receive deliveries from a 12-year-old bowler. It is even less advisable in Pakistan. The boy will either be the next Waqar Younis, with a late toe-crushing yorker, or the next Abdul Qadir, with an assortment of wrist-spun mysteries. But it is hard to refuse. Pakistanis are very good mannered to visitors, especially over cricket since they have seen so few of them in the last six years. After the terrorist attack on the touring Sri Lankans in 2009, Pakistan had to play all its home international series in the neutral opulence of the UAE, in gleaming but empty stadiums out of reach of most of their supporters. Anyway, if an Englishman pauses in Pakistan beside any kind of cricket match or even practice, within a minute scores of people, mostly teenagers and below, will offer to bowl at him.

On visits to Pakistan, I have had this experience in city streets and alleyways, in parks, even on the roof of an apartment block (a setting where Javed Miandad had his early cricket, and learnt to keep the ball down). I knew what to expect when I visited the Bagh-e-Jinnah cricket ground, in Lahore, to write about a special cricket camp for city children. Alongside camera, notepads, voice recorder, normal assortment of my books to give away, I had packed batting gloves, box and thigh pad, newly purchased (for about one third of English prices) at the legendary Gander’s sports shop (founded 1937, and same décor).

It is high summer.  The late afternoon sun is beating down, fitfully blotted out by relays of swooping kites.

The Bagh-e-Jinnah, home of the Lahore Gymkhana Cricket Club, is one of the world’s most beautiful cricket grounds, set in what used to be known as Lawrence Gardens, which also houses a zoo and a magnificent library. It is ringed by tall trees, one dedicated to Fazal Mahmood, Pakistan’s great seam bowler of the 1950s. He would sit under its shade and, rather like his contemporary Fred Trueman, deplore the goings-on of the present generation. Benches all round the ground commemorate other great performers or local patrons. Those in the shade of the tall trees are popular places to nap. There is a small but elegant pavilion which includes a small but delightful museum founded and curated by Lahore’s leading cricket historian, Mr Najum Latif.

The Bagh-e-Jinnah ground staged 148 first-class matches between 1923 and 2005, ending with Pakistan A’s six-wicket victory over Michael Vaughan’s English tourists. Three of those matches were Tests, all played on matting, a surface Pakistan abandoned under pressure from (of all people) President Eisenhower. The ground is now used for top-class club cricket, finals for school and university tournaments, and, increasingly for women’s matches. (The astonishing story of women’s cricket in Pakistan, blending heroics and catfights, is told in Peter Oborne’s book Wounded Tiger.)

A notable early performer on the Bagh-e-Jinnah was the visiting Maharajah of Kashmir, whose style would appeal to many Bushmen. His Highness played only as a batsman (bowling and running in the field were undignified) and would indicate when it was convenient for him to take the crease. (At his home ground, he liked to be summoned by telephone from his palace.) A generous assortment of half-volleys and long-hops were bowled, and a late “No-ball” was called if one of these was so ungracious as to miss his bat and disturb a bail. His Highness’s shots were not intercepted (still less, caught) but escorted to the boundary. More recently, Pakistan’s current Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, received the same treatment in club matches when his staff fielded for the opposition.

But I digress…

I have made a point of arriving on time for the opening of the camp, which means that I am early. I linger by the side of the practice net, and sure enough someone offers to bowl at me. He looks about twelve, although ages are often uncertain in Pakistan, where there is no register of births. (On official figures, Aaqib Javed, who played 22 Tests for Pakistan opened the bowling in a domestic first-class match at the age of 12 and two months. He took 3 for 15 in the second innings). The youngster, Murad, had a broomstick in his hand (perhaps intending to use it later against my bowling). Was he skiving from the cleaning detail? Why not? I accepted the invitation. A bat and pads were fetched from the pavilion. A helmet was offered, but I hate them and it did seem a bit wimpy against an apparent twelve-year-old in flip flops.

Well, he wasn’t Waqar Younis but he did produce a brisk military medium, just back of a length. The Fahrenheit temperature had celebrated its century some time earlier, but he put everything into each delivery. Most of them skidded on the concrete surface, and one prompted a squawk for lbw (rejected, after referral by me to me, on Maharajah rules.)

Like thousands of past great players, Murad was clearly ready to bowl all day in the heat, but in a short time he was joined by two security guards, who politely laid down their automatic weapons, a fat man in a Pakistan track suit, and a chap who seemed to be a touring preacher. He was seriously quick. Now although it is good manners in Pakistan to bowl at any passing Englishman it also seems to be good manners to assume that he must be a fine batsman. It is insulting not to try your utmost to dismiss him. The fat man produced some deliveries which hummed in the air (a cliché of cricket writing, but it really can happen). Murad removed his flip-flops, and the mullah lengthened his run-up (his ministry evidently allowed him to wear trainers and carry a new ball). Most ominously, the security guards took up their weapons again. After several overs of groping and fending, I was able to use the formal start of the cricket camp as an excuse to break free.

The club chairman, Javed Zaman, gave a little speech. It was in Urdu, but I could tell that it contained one successful joke and one that fails. Javed Zaman is a tall, patriarchal figure in his seventies, who holds court most days in the pavilion. (Peter Oborne once compared him, extravagantly, to the heads of the princely families in War And Peace). He is a scion of the Burki dynasty, which produced three generations of Test cricketers, and a cousin of three Pakistan captains, Javed Burki, Majid Khan and Imran Khan. He played nine first-class matches as an off-spinning all-rounder, including Imran’s first-class debut aged 16 (“he was a slinger then, I didn’t think he would go far.”) He has also filled dozens of administrative posts in Pakistan’s domestic cricket.

Dozens of children show up for the camp, aged from about 8 to 18. It is boys only although the barriers against girls are breaking down. Some clearly are from rich families. They arrive by chauffeur-driven car, with a retinue of attendants bearing snacks, water and energy drinks. They are in immaculate whites (or official Pakistan kit), and have expensive equipment. Sadly, some of these children clearly do not want to be there. They are overweight and argumentative. They leave their video games only at the last possible second, go through the motions in all the practices, and scuttle back at every opportunity to the drinks and the video games.

But most of the boys are in real earnest. For them, events such as this are a chance to be noticed by someone important, perhaps even emulate the many great players of the past, like Wasim Akram or Shoaib Akhtar who got fast-tracked as teenagers because somebody saw them. Some of these hopefuls have walked a long way to the camp dragging a kitbag in the heat and dodging Lahore’s demented traffic. Others balance themselves and their kit precariously on a relative’s scooter (I once saw a family of six travelling this way). I recognize one such from an earlier visit, Shayan, then officially twelve, now officially 14. He is on a roll, recently named man of the match and reported in local newspapers after helping his state school defeat a prestigious private one in a school tournament.

As in England, cricket is in retreat in state schools. Children from poorer families increasingly depend on club cricket (also in retreat) or special events like this to develop the skills of “proper cricket”. It is much easier to play tapeball, a street version invented in Pakistan, which uses a lighter bat and a tennis ball covered in duct tape. There is no lbw and no pads are worn. The basic stroke is to walk across the stumps and cart the ball over mid-wicket. There are no slow bowlers (it is impossible to propel a tapeball at low speed) but the thing will swing prodigiously for quicker ones. Bowlers of any kind have little reward anyway, since matches can be as little as three overs each way and a maximum of eight. Seventeen an over is regarded as a defensible scoring rate. Not, one feels, a version for the Bushmen.

I am introduced to Shayan’s friend Emmad, and an older boy named Faizan. He is officially 18, but is very slight and shorter than me. He has a very typical back story. He played tapeball for six years and was not introduced to the hard-ball game until he was sixteen. This happened only because his father was serving as a ball boy at Javed Zaman’s tennis club at the nearby Railway cantonment. He was introduced to Javed Zaman, who took him to a club match at the Bagh-e-Jinnah, where he impressed as a substitute fielder in the outfield. (This is a frequent source of opportunity when elderly club cricketers take a break in the heat). Javed Zaman brought him to a cricket camp, where he was coached for the first time and met another leading figure in Lahore cricket, Nasir Bukhari. He was then fast-tracked into organized cricket as a batting all-rounder, and when I met him he had just made his debut for Lahore under-19s.

The mercury is still climbing, and the air has acquired the metallic smell that presages an electrical storm. Even the kites have given up their swooping, but the older and better players are being put through an intense fielding session: running, sprinting, catching a skier, hurling it in, running back into the line. I would rapidly have joined the fat rich kids in the pavilion, but none of those concerned show any sign of flagging. When they finally get a water break, a small group comes over to me. Would I like to join their pick-up match?

I cannot refuse the honour – but only to field. I would be wrong to deprive these young batsmen and bowlers of a chance to impress, and besides I don’t want to look like an idiot in that company.

In Pakistan there is a strong culture of respect for age, so for once I make a point of mine. I tell the boys that I actually watched the great Fazal Mahmood, whom most of them knew only from his nearby tree, in his twelve-wicket triumph at the Oval in 1954 (well, I’m sure I saw some of it on Pathé news). They ask, did I play first-class? Lower, lower… but I made the most of my celebrity matches and overseas tours with the Lords and Commons, and of course the Bushmen, which to young Lahore has now become one of England’s premier clubs, dripping with ex-Test stars and Nobel prize winners.

Whether genuinely impressed or simply continuing good manners, the group listens respectfully when I demonstrate the grip for the “zombie” and when the match begins they applaud a diving stop. (Not much fun diving on Pakistani grounds in high summer.)

I haven’t had time to do much more for good or ill when the electricity in the air finally releases itself. Its detonations produce no rain but a massive swirling sandstorm. The young players continue but I wear contact lenses, the perfect excuse to dash back to the pavilion.

Over a limopani (juice of a wonderful local fruit usually translated as “sweet lime”) I make a note of all the names of the young people I have met, still on the pitch. I hope that one of them at least will break through to the Test team and I can bore future Bushmen with the story of how I played with him in a sandstorm.

I also check the temperature before the storm descended. I discover that I played cricket in 48 degrees – 118 in proper Fahrenheit – a personal record I shall carry into overdue retirement.

Richard Heller

21 August 2015