Remembering Khalid Hasan by Arshad Chughtai

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Scorecard:	England v Pakistan
Player:	Khalid Hasan

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DateLine: 14th January 2014

 

Khalid Hasan remains to date the only Test cricketer whose career ended before he turned 17. In fact Khalid Hasan was the youngest player ever to appear in Test cricket in England while making his debut at Trent Bridge in the Second Test of the 1954 series for the A.H. Kardar led tourists. Khalid was 16 years and 352 days old at the time. Unfortunately, that was his solitary Test appearance. Born at Peshawar on 14 July, 1937 the leg break and googly bowler died on 3rd December, 2013 at the age of 76.

 

During this record-making appearance at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, Khalid had claimed 2 for 116 in 21 overs, still his figures and performance was comparatively better than Fazal Mahmood (0 for 148 in 47 overs), Khan Mohammad (3 for 155 in 40 overs) and skipper A.H. Kardar (1 for 110 in 28 overs). England amassed 558 for 6 declared in their only innings and Pakistan lost the match by an innings and 129 runs. Incidentally, Khalid’s victims were the two centurions, – R.T. Simpson (101) and DCS Compton (278), both of whom he had clean bowled.

 

Khalid’s best performance (4 for 27) on the tour was against the Club Cricket Conference. He was also instrumental in Pakistan’s victories against Worcestershire (2 for 65 & 1 for 61), Middlesex (3 for 73 & 2 for 68) and Scotland. He had also appeared in matches against Cambridge University, Glamorgan, MCC, Sussex, Combined Services Team, Yorkshire and Surrey.

 

For the sake of record, Khalid Hasan was the youngest Test debutant for Pakistan at that time. Later, five more players emulated and improved the record, in chronological order: Nasim-ul-Ghani (16 years and 248 days v/s West Indies at Bridge Town Barbados in 1957-58), Mushtaq Mohammad (15 years and 124 days v/s West Indies at Lahore in 1958-59), Aftab Baloch (16 years and 221 days v/s New Zealand at Dacca in 1969-70), Aaqib Javed (16 years and 189 days v/s New Zealand at Basin Reserve in 1988-89) and Hasan Raza (14 years and 227 days v/s Zimbabwe at Faisalabad in 1996-97).

 

Alas! One more member of the famous Pakistan team which had established Pakistan cricket on the world cricket map has passed away.

 

(Article: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only.
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