Saeed Anwar The Majestic Opener

Majestic timing and placement were Saeed Anwar's hallmarks. He was an opener capable of electrifying starts in all cricket through graceful strokeplay rather than brute force. He loved driving through the off side with minimal footwork. He annihilated any bowler offering width outside off stump although he too regularly guided the ball straight into the hands of fourth slip or gully. He first came to prominence as a one-day player but soon achieved equal success in Test cricket.

His father was a talented club cricketer when business allowed. Aged 45, he played in a club match with his son and straight-drove a ball which, his son says, almost cleared two grounds. Anwar thinks he may have inherited some of his wrist-power from his father. He developed it by playing squash (daily) and table tennis; he became a slow left-arm bowler too; and, above all, he practised batting in the garage of his Karachi home. The bowler was not his much younger brother, Javed Anwar, who has played for Lahore Under-19, but often Rashid Latif, Pakistan's future wicket-keeper, who lived nearby. His reflexes were heightened by batting against a tennis ball covered in tape and bowled from 14 or 15 yards.

His rapid run-scoring led to selection against the touring Australians in 1988-89 at Peshawar for the NWFP Governor's XI: batting at No.5 Anwar does not seem to have been overawed as he scored his 127 from 156 balls. He was chosen for the short tour of Australia and New Zealand a few months later and he did make his debut in one-day internationals, but was sent home after one first-class game in Australia as Pakistan needed an opener. He was back on the Test tour of Australia a year later. There was little opportunity in the middle order, but when he was promoted to open halfway through the World Series, he scored 126 off only 99 balls against Sri Lanka. His one-day career was launched.

His beginning in Test matches was stickier: against West Indies at Faisalabad in 1990-91, he bagged a pair as an opener, but it was Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop who dismissed him and he can laugh about it in retrospect. The one-day runs continued in profusion, but further Test opportunities did not arise, and the one-day batsman label applied by Pakistan's press and public stuck ever more tightly. It was with some relief that in February 1994, in his third Test, he scored 169 against New Zealand at Wellington. He said "It was the most thrilling time of my life. I was really happy to have proved all those people wrong."

Anwar was the first Pakistani batsman to score a century against India on Indian soil in a one-day match. He has the highest Test batting average (59.06) of any Pakistani against Australia, and once scored three consecutive centuries against them. He scored a classic century against South Africa in Durban, which allowed Pakistan to win a Test match for the first time in South Africa.

Anwar is a member of the exclusive club of batsmen who have scored three successive hundreds in ODIs, with hundreds against Sri Lanka, West Indies and Sri Lanka during the 1993–94 in Sharjah. He scored two successive hundreds on three other occasions in his career, and was the first batsman to complete this feat in ODIs.

An opening batsman capable of annihilating any bowling attack on his day, Anwar was an attacking batsman in one-day matches and once settled in Test matches, scored quickly and all over the field. His success came from good timing and wrist flicks rather than physical power, and Anwar became famous for his trademark flick. He was able to lift a ball that had pitched outside off stump for six over midwicket. Anwar's timing and ability to score quick runs made him a crowd favourite. He was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1997.

In the beginning his impetuosity brought accusations of a lack of concentration, a fly-by-night character. Instead Anwar showed that his destructive one-day talent could be harnessed into a formidable Test-match force, so much so that he became Pakistan's best opener since Majid Khan, and perhaps even surpassed Hanif Mohammad, who is usually acclaimed as the greatest of all Pakistan's opening batsmen. Imran Khan always rated Anwar highly, and someone of doubtful temperament would never receive Imran's praise. He wasn't quite on a par with Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, as Imran claims - but few batsmen are. Nor was he a natural athlete: indeed he was sometimes a liability in the field. And when the captaincy came to him, he seemed surprisingly uncomfortable. Perhaps it should not have been a surprise, because it was batting that Saeed Anwar loved most.

Two events changed that. Early on in the 1999 World Cup final, Anwar asked for the rubber on his bat-handle to be changed. He was out next ball, and Pakistan crumbled. Had the change been necessary? Had it broken his concentration? This thought tormented him, and some of his hunger ebbed with that disappointment. Two years later his young daughter died. Anwar's mind turned to religion. What did cricket matter after that?

Still he insisted that he wanted his place back. And the sole pleasure that Pakistani fans derived from a disappointing World Cup in South Africa was Anwar's farewell one-day century against India. This was fitting because despite his general success against all countries, two of his most memorable successes had come against India in India. The third Test that Pakistan played in India in February 1999 was the first in the Asian Test Championship. India and Pakistan had drawn the preceding Test series, so this match in Calcutta was effectively the decider. Pakistan, put into bat, collapsed to 26 for 6. They recovered to 185, and in the second innings Anwar carried his bat for a magnificent 188 not out in a total of 316, which turned out to be a winning score.

Two years earlier in Chennai, Anwar posted 194, the highest one-day score by Pakistani to date and possibly for years to come. Pakistan will not replace him easily.

On 15 August 2003 he announced his retirement after being overlooked for the series against Bangladesh.

He confirmed his intentions at a news conference.

"I enjoyed my cricket for Pakistan," he said, "and after 15 years today I announce my retirement from international and first-class cricket."I am retiring on a high note but am disappointed," added Anwar. "I could have played for two more years. I made a pair in my first Test and never in my dreams imagined I would go that far after failing in my first Test. I played for Pakistan with pride and want to be remembered as a good and decent player. No one leaves cricket as a happy man ... but I think this was Allah Almighty's will."

"I've enjoyed playing for Pakistan and it has always been a great honour for me to wear the national blazer. I relished the challenge of facing the world's fastest bowlers and scoring runs against them,"