DR Zafar Altaf, the former cricket administrator who died in Islamabad following a cardiac arrest, was a man of extraordinary virtues. Apart from being a very good first-class cricketer, he was an economist, respected civil servant and author.

A right-handed middle-order batsman, Zafar’s playing career was confined to just 53 matches in a 13-year period – from 1958-59 until 1971-72 – during the days when a team used to much fewer fixtures than those held in the modern era.

Zafar represented Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi as well as the Pakistan Universities scoring 2,448 runs in 80 innings at a respectable average of 32.21 besides taking eight wickets at 37.87 as an occasional exponent of leg-spin bowling.

Zafar, who was born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh on Aug 1, 1941, was considered by many a stylish batsman with a full repertoire of strokes. Out of his four centuries in first-class cricket, the most notable of them was his highest score as well.

Playing for Lahore Greens in the Ayub Trophy match against Bahawalpur at the picturesque Bagh-i-Jinnah in April 1966, Zafar hit up 268 in 305 minutes with 38 boundaries as his team amassed 824 all out in 156 overs.

Majid Khan, who later became Pakistan captain for a short period in the 1970s, also registered his highest score in first-class cricket in the same innings as he made 241. The fourth-wicket partnership between Zafar and Majid was worth 346 before both of them were dismissed by spinner Javed Bhatti.

1967-68 was Zafar’s most successful season in which he scored 605 runs at 37.81 and the selectors once again took note of him after a lapse of seven years, but the elusive Pakistan cap always eluded this soft-spoken cricketer.

Zafar was part of the Pakistan squad which toured India under Fazal Mahmood’s captaincy in 1960-61 and played in eight side matches where his performance was modest with a tally of 262 at 29.11 with only two 50-plus scores.

In the tour opener at Baroda, he scored 53 against Baroda. In between, his best score was 31 against Madhya Pradesh before making 63 against the Bombay Cricket Association President’s XI at the Brabourne Stadium in the final tour game.

The India tour was the closest Zafar ever came to play Test cricket but his dream never got realised. In 1968, Zafar led South Zone and North Zone against the Commonwealth XI and played under Mohammad Hanif against the same tourists for the BCCP XI.

In the first game at Karachi, off-spinner David Allen dismissed Zafar for duck but South Zone still won by three wickets. He scored 64 not out in Peshawar but could not prevent the Commonwealth XI from winning by 52 runs.

After his playing days were over, Zafar went into cricket administration when Abul Hafeez Kardar ruled the roost as the president of the Board of Control in Pakistan (as the Pakistan Cricket Board was known then). He served as the honorary secretary from 1972 to 1975 and during this period, he was the manager of the Pakistan U-25 team which went to Sri Lanka with Wasim Raja as captain.

Zafar was also the assistant manager on the 1974 tour of England where Intikhab Alam-led squad emulated Don Bardman’s 1948 Invincibles by not losing any first-class match.

Zafar was highly respected as a national selector and served as the committee’s chairman in the 1990s when Pakistan cricket was dogged by controversies. But Zafar remained unscathed and even had a brief stint as the PCB chairman following the dismissal of Khalid Mahmood before Lt Gen Tauqir Zia took over in December 1999.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2015