On its own, the photograph is not particularly striking. But with meaning in place it assumes resonance. On one side stands Imran Khan, bat tucked under armpit, left glove being strapped back on. He is smiling, which is rare and his gold, mini-medallion, which was not rare then, is on unapologetic display.
Alongside him, shorter in inches but equal in stature, is his batting partner for the occasion. Sunil Gavaskar, floppy-hatted and unsmiling, is looking suitably serious and focused about the task at hand. Presumably the pair were somewhere in the middle of a 180-run stand that was busy saving their side.
The picture is 27 years old now, from a game between the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and a Rest of the World XI (ROW), and one I have never forgotten for what it captures and represents.
This was Gavaskar’s last first-class match. It was to be Imran’s last as well. He had announced that summer that he was retiring from Tests and would leave the game completely once the World Cup later that year was over. Pakistani cricketers have never been retiring about retirements, so he would un-retire before the year was out.
Of course, there was the romantic nostalgia of the India-Pakistan angle, and of their farewells, as well as the chutzpah of the punch line: an Indian and a Pakistani get together … and they save the world. The two countries were going through one of their better phases. They had played a five-Test series in India earlier in the year (the last of that length between the two). They would co-host a World Cup that winter.
But there was a worldlier ideal at play than just an India-Pakistan union. Gavaskar and Imran were on one team, and Kapil Dev and Jeffrey Dujon joined them. In opposition Richard Hadlee and Malcolm Marshall opened the bowling, with Clive Rice, the greatest all-rounder not to play Test cricket, backing them up.
In such a nonchalant way the idea of that game showed up the overwrought ludicrousness that underpins the basis for almost all team sport and ultimately, even the reality of the nation-state itself.
It was that picture that came to mind on Saturday, as another MCC side took on another ROW XI, this time to celebrate 200 years of the Lord’s ground, the most hallowed – and also most pompous – venue in cricket. This time the game mixed current stars with recently retired greats and so, though essentially meaningless, it was impossible to ignore.
Few sports can sepia-tint themselves better than cricket and so the prospect of watching a permutation of Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan facing off was too much, and nationalities be damned.
It was worth it, too, if only to see Lara bat again and play one of those whipped cuts that somehow tease their way through the field. For spectacle, a Lara cut is not dissimilar to the Roger Federer forehand, that “liquid whip” as it was once so richly described.
Lara’s innate cool stands undiminished, though alongside the hyper-modern Aaron Finch, his batting seemed somehow quaint and dainty. Lara could be brutal on his day but only in effect. In method he was always so elegant and graceful that for opponents it was like being cut to size by Oscar Wilde: as much an honour as insult.
For all that, cricket is a sucker for such occasions, it has had an uneven and uneasy experience of these kind of contests. Back in the Australian summer of 1971/72, when it was decided to not play South Africa (because of their apartheid government), an impromptu series was organised against a strong World XI side.
That entire tour is remembered as a prolonged gladiatorial battle, played out in massive stadiums, to huge crowds watching larger-than-life legends. They were never recorded as official contests, because cricket’s statisticians can be more pedantic than a room full of bureaucrats. But some players remember it to be the most exhilarating sport of their careers.
And when, in 2005, the International Cricket Council arranged an official series between the world’s best side – Australia – against a side of the world’s best players, the Super Series completely failed to fire. Statisticians, of course, refuse to acknowledge they were real games.
There are plenty of other failures, not least the short-lived Asia XI v Africa XI series. I am still not sure why, because in the imagination these work.
Perhaps the Super Series was not given enough time. Or perhaps these are best left as exhibitions to idle away the mind, with no pretence of competitive edge or consequence. Perhaps that is their place, though it is hard to accept when for example, Saeed Ajmal does in Kevin Pietersen with the doosra as he did on Saturday. That is an episode of pure, fabulous sport, worthy of greater, more serious status.
Maybe the Indian Premier League and others like it are the answers to these desires. They bring together essentially what we want: a mix of past greats with current ones, from around the world, teaming up, facing off. It is a border-less world, in which the past and present commune.
But they are done in by their own brevity, 20 overs being barely enough for cricket’s imagination.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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