West Indies’ former captain and manager Franz Copeland Murray Alexander had come over for dinner to our home, myself and another first class cricketer, Iftikhar Ali Bokhari, his contemporary at Caius College, Cambridge. Dinner table was about stories on and off the field, and Alexander had more than a few stories to tell.

To a question about the best Pakistani batsman, his comments are worth being engraved in bold letters. He referred back to Pakistan’s first Test match against the West Indies at Bridgetown in 1958 — a game that shaped his opinion.

“At the start of the second innings, Gilchrist’s first ball, a searing bouncer kissed Imtiaz’s chin before thudding into my gloves while he was still completing his shot,” said Alexander. “The slip cordon including Sobers all muttered this poor man is dead. The next blistering bouncer was flashed to the fence and from then on Gilchrist went bouncer mad and Imtiaz hooked and pulled him with tremendous skill and authority till he had totally demolished him.

Remembering Imtiaz Ahmed, who passed away last week

“This carried on till just before lunch when on 91 he was sweeping Gilchrist off the front foot and was given out to a very bad decision. I have never seen a more devastating, destroying exhibition of hooking and pulling against such terrific pace. In fact it was his total demoralization of our main strike bowler making him absolutely ineffective, which paved the way for Hanif’s 337 in that match.”

Sir Wesley Hall recounts in his autobiography how he woke up from a nightmare in which Imtiaz was hooking him mercilessly all over the ground, a great tribute from one great to another.

In the early days, Pakistan’s slip cordon was the sloppiest in world cricket. The only reliable catcher was Wallis Mathias, who could hold onto anything. Imtiaz had played Fazal Mahmood a lot and knew from his grip what the ball was going to do. So Imtiaz was virtually taking catches of the first slip on either side of the wicket.

In 1963, playing against the Commonwealth XI in the unofficial Test Match at Karachi, even at that advanced age, Imtiaz did not hesitate to open against Charlie Griffith, the world’s most feared bowler at the time and honoured me, his ardent fan since childhood, as his opening partner.

But above all he played for the honour of Pakistan and with no other consideration. His dedication can only be admired and respected. Such a soldier in the field of cricket shall never rise again.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, January 8th, 2017