Hanif, Imran, and Miandad in cricket's hall of fame (19 April 1999)

19 April 1999

Hanif, Imran, and Miandad in cricket's hall of fame

Qamar Ahmed

LONDON: For their memorable contribution to the game, three former Pakistan cricketers, Hanif Mohammad, Imran Khan and Javed Miandad have been included amongst fifty of the world's legendary cricketers by the Federation of International Cricketers Association's Hall of Fame launched at the Lord's

Long Room last week. Of those named, 19 are from England, 12 from the West Indies, 10 from Australia, 3 each from India and Pakistan, 2 from South Africa and only one from New Zealand and none from either Sri Lanka or Zimbabwe.

They have been chosen by a panel of cricketers, including nine present day captains of the Test teams as well as prominent players from different countries. The criterion according to the FICA's secretary is the acknowledged ability of the players and also they must be retired from international cricket.

The three Indians included in the Hall of Fame are Sunil Gavaskar, Bishen Singh Bedi and the all-rounder Kapil Dev. The Pakistanis in the list are headed by Hanif Mohammad, the only triple century maker in Tests from either India or Pakistan, Imran Khan an all-rounder and the prolific batsman Javed Miandad. Zaheer Abbas, the only cricketer of the sub-continent to have scored more than hundred first class centuries is surprisingly missing from the list. All the six from the sub-continent have also captained their country.

The 19 players selected from England include such luminaries as, Sir Jack Hobbs, Sir Len Hutton, Denis Compton, Peter May, Lord Cowdrey, Jim Laker, Derek Underwood, Ian Botham, Freddie Trueman, Harold Larwood and Sir Alee Bedser.

The Australians are headed by Sir Don Bradman, Richie Benaud, Niel Harvey, Kieth Miller, Ray Lindwall, Greg Chappell, Rodney Marsh to name a few. Ian Chappell is not included.

The West Indians have the three W's, Sir Clyde Walcott, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Viv Richards, Sir Garfield Sobers, Clive Lloyd, George Headley, Michael Holding and the rest.

South Africa's Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards are in the list as well and the only New Zealander is of course Sir Richard Hadlee. Glen Turner, the scorer of more than hundred first class centuries is not in the list.

According to the secretary of the FICA, every year all the individual player's association across the world will be invited to put forward the names of the additional players to be inducted into the hall of fame. A panel of FICA selectors will then select up to five new members from this list to be included in the FICA Hall of Fame each year.

We have launched the Hall of Fame in response to huge number of requests from cricketers and cricket followers for some way of honouring the memorable contributions many individuals have made to the game," said Mathew Fleming, the Chairman of the Professional Cricketers Association.

FICA was launched in 1998 to enable communication between professional cricketers associ-ations across the world. Its objective is to encourage and promote the spirit of the game; to enable cricketers around the world to have a voice at all levels of cricket administration, to represent the associations to the ICC and various domestic governing bodies, to assist the commercial activities of each domestic cricketers association to raise much needed finance to ensure the development of education, accident insurance and benevolent projects.

Source :: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)