Pak-India v England, March 1981: The first international-level match to take place in UAE

As part of The National's Memory Lane series, Osman Samiuddin looks back at the first time two international cricket teams played each other in the UAE, a Pakistan-India side taking on England in March 1981.

Pakistan's Imran Khan, batting, was involved in the March 1981 game.

The match between a Miandad XI and a Gavaskar XI in Sharjah is rightly considered the moment international cricket in the UAE began.

But it was not the first time two strong international-level sides had played each other in the UAE.

That happened, remarkably, just a month before the Sharjah game, in March 1981, and, as with Sharjah, it happened with the involvement of Pakistani cricketers.

The two games, on March 5 and 6, were arranged as benefit games for Younis Ahmed and held in Dubai, at Al Nasr’s Al Maktoum football stadium.

Ahmed was one of the first in a long and fun line of Pakistani cricket’s bad boys. A gifted left-handed batsman and globe-trotting athlete, he was banned for life by the Pakistan board in 1973 for touring South Africa during the country’s apartheid era.

He played and coached in Rhodesia, played for several English counties and in Australia, he eventually played two more Tests for Pakistan 17 years after his first and then fought with Imran Khan.

In 1981, he landed in Dubai.

MEMORY LANE: Miandad XI v Gavaskar XI in Sharjah — April 3, 1981: The match that changed cricket

He found assistance in Sheikh Mana bin Khalifa, a cousin of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who acted as a patron for the matches.

Don Revie, the former England football manager, who was coach of Al Nasr at the time, was also involved.

Unlike Sharjah and reflective of his travels, as well as the plurality of Dubai, Ahmed went beyond just Indian and Pakistani players and managed to rope in a strong English side, so the two games were between a combined India-Pakistan XI and an English XI.

The smaller dimensions of the field meant that some fans remember those games — both night games — as more exciting and entertaining than the Sharjah game.

“That was a far more exciting match than Sharjah,” said Farid Alvie, who attended both matches.

“Imran Khan and Wasim Raja were there and a whole bunch of girls in the stands spent the match just trying to attract their attention. It was a very relaxed atmosphere and quite busy. But it was a lot of fun and as it was the first time something like that happened, there was a novelty to it.

“It was happening at a football stadium, so it was very small. Imran was bowling off very few paces and sixes were going everywhere.”

The English side won both games, though Imran lit up the stadium. In the first match, he made 179 (in a 35-over game), including 18 sixes and 13 fours, while in the second he was dismissed first ball but took three for 45.

When asked to compare the two sets of games, Abdul Rahman Bukhatir said: “Ours is a permanent series and not a personal one.”

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