The little master Hanif Mohammad has been battling with cancer, lately, with the same fortitude and resolution with which he always faced fastest bowlers of his time in cricket field. Pushing eighty, he is in the autumn of his life. His pocket cannot afford the prohibitive expenditure of cancer treatment. Hanif is to cricket what Hashim Khan was to squash, Hameedi to hockey and Bholu to wrestling. Cricketers like him are born once in a blue moon. They are always a rare commodity. Time was when he and Fazal Mahmood gave identity to Pakistan’s cricket abroad. No other Pakistani batsman had opened innings for Pakistan so many times as Hanif did. He was a sheet anchor of Pakistan batting who could bat for hours and hours together without losing concentration tirelessly. Once he batted for more than 16 hours in a test match against the West Indies thus setting up a record of playing the longest inning in test cricket. In the days when he played, helmets had not been introduced in cricket and, mind you, Hanif fearlessly faced the fastest bowlers of all times like Miller, Lindwall, Tyson, Statham, Hall and Gilchrist, to mention a few, so many times during his cricketing career.
Hanif’s brothers, namely Wazir Mohammad, Musthaq Mohammad, Sadiq Mohammad and his son Shoaib also played test cricket for Pakistan.
It is good that following media reports about his precarious health condition the government has announced monetary assistance for his medical treatment. In case his ailment cannot be treated here it won’t be a bad idea if he is flown to the United States at government expense for medical treatment abroad. Pakistan’s cricket owes a great deal to the little master as he is known in the cricketing world.
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