Genius on a knife-edge

Saeed Anwar: Pakistan will not replace him easily © Getty Images

When Taufeeq Umar and Mohammad Hafeez eventually fill their boots against the gentle souls of Bangladesh, spare a thought for the man who would have destroyed the same opposition with little more than a flick of his wrists. Pakistan's new openers have an eye for a bad ball, but they will rarely destroy a bowling attack with the grace and timing that Saeed Anwar brought to almost every innings.

Anwar carried the torch for Pakistan's lineage of artists whose batting arc was free of swing and true of radius. Zaheer Abbas and Majid Khan were fellow spirits, and only Yousuf Youhana of the current crop can lay claim to the same torch of gracefulness.

There is more cricket left in Anwar, but that does not mean he has a divine right to a place in the international team. Pakistan had to rebuild, and after a period of watchful waiting it became obvious that he should make way for younger, hungrier men. This is a shame for cricket fans from all countries. Anwar's minimal foot movement meant that he relied almost entirely on a highly evolved hand-eye co-ordination that could thread a ball between two fielders three yards apart but 30 yards away from the bat and hell bent on stopping it. And all this with a bat flashing so dangerously away from his body that each delivery could have brought his downfall - it usually did, but usually too after he had already raised his bat to acclaim yet another half-century or hundred. This was genius at work - genius on a knife-edge - and fans were thrilled by it.

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 to date and possibly for years to come. Pakistan will not replace him easily.