The fortunes of UAE cricket have been mixed over the past two decades.
There had been times when members of the 1996 squad wondered whether they would live to see their feat of playing at a World Cup repeated.
In one player’s case, that sentiment was all too literal. In 2009, Mohammed Ishaq, one of the leading batsmen in that side, nearly lost his life in a road accident in Saudi Arabia.
“I felt my last breath leaving me,” Ishaq said, revealing that he had heard his wife’s voice telling their children to pray for their baba as he lapsed out of consciousness. “I held my wife’s hand and told her I will see her in paradise.”
None of the other seven people in the vehicle, including his wife and five children, were injured. But Ishaq’s vertebra was crushed.
He has been in a wheelchair since and doctors have told him he will never walk again.
But his condition has not stopped him from being a regular in the stands for matches at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, and he provides the benefit of his knowledge for young players when asked.
His life has been defined by playing cricket for his adopted country and, at age 51, he has hopes his son, Abdulla, might follow him in wearing national team grey one day.
Maybe even at a World Cup because, for him, 1996 was the finest of times.
His message to today’s players in the national team is to enjoy their time in the limelight. “It is like a dream,” he said. “We wish luck to them.”
Leaving Pakistan
The story of Ishaq’s arrival in the UAE is typical of so many leading cricketers in this country.
He had shown talent as a first-class cricketer in his homeland and was reckoned to be in the running for selection for the Pakistan national team.
Two hundreds early in his Qaid-e-Azam trophy career earned him recognition and a call-up seemed imminent when Imran Khan and Zaheer Abbas, two seniors of the side, fell out with the Pakistan board ahead of a tour to Australia.
“My blazer was made, but at the last moment Imran and Zaheer patched up their differences with the board,” Ishaq said.
“That was very sad for me. I had prepared with the team. So I was near to the team, but my financial condition was too low.”
Offered a secure job as a money-market officer with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, on the simple proviso he score runs for the staff team, he opted to leave.
The birth of UAE
When he was 24, he was coming into his prime as a cricketer, but had left behind the prospect of playing at the international level as the UAE was still some time away from initiating a national team.
Highly competitive cricket was being played between rival companies, made up of imported players from the subcontinent.
But it needed a charismatic Emirati to bring about the formation of a national representative side.
“From the beginning, I had hope, because I played a lot of cricket with Sultan Zarawani,” Ishaq said of the UAE’s first cricket captain and driving force.
That Zarawani is remembered primarily for being hit on a helmet-less head by an Allan Donald bouncer at the 1996 World Cup is a travesty because, without him, there would not have been a UAE team at all.
He went to the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) office in 1992, which was then at Lord’s in London, and got the new national team entry to the 1994 ICC Trophy, the qualifying tournament for the World Cup.
“He called me straight away and said, ‘Ishaq, mabrouk [congratulations], we got the vote and we are going to make an official UAE cricket team’. That was very pleasant news,” he said.
Glory days
Ishaq loves cars. He has three, each with modified passenger seats on account of his immobility.
During his cricket career, his feats with the bat helped him indulge his passion. In one particularly fruitful season, he made more than Dh30,000 in rewards for performances in domestic cricket and was also given a Toyota Corolla.
After earning the man-of-the-match award for scoring a decisive half-century in the final of the 1994 ICC Trophy, he was rewarded with a Mercedes.
More pertinently, though, the reward for that win over the hosts Kenya was a place at the World Cup.
The hastily assembled side had done it at the first attempt, in a competition that included Bangladesh – who were still to be promoted to full Test status – Fiji, Gibraltar and Argentina.
“The first time we went, we qualified without losing a single match,” he said. “Even Sri Lanka, who qualified [years] before us, lost a match.
“We didn’t.”
Playing at the World Cup
It is commonly agreed the UAE side who will be playing in Australia and New Zealand over the next six weeks are the best-prepared set of players to have left these shores for any tournament, including the 1996 team.
Despite that, it would still be a fine achievement if this vintage match what the 1996 side did and claim even one win.
A solitary victory over the Netherlands 19 years ago represented mission accomplished, according to Ishaq.
“I wasn’t nervous because I had played against the likes of Wasim Akram many times before,” he said.
“We were clubmates and college mates. They had their reputations but we had all played first-class cricket in Pakistan and there was no difference at all.
“But to be frank, we didn’t expect to beat teams like Pakistan.
“The Netherlands were in our group and that was our main focus, but we gave New Zealand and Pakistan a fight.”
pradley@thenational.ae
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