1959
Twelve for 100 at Dacca
Fazal Mahmood captained Pakistan and took twelve wickets for 100 at Dacca in March 1959, in a home Test that ended inside three days. The ground is now in another country, and the card carries both names for the city.
Pakistan played West Indies at Dacca in March 1959 and won by 41 runs inside three days. Fazal Mahmood, the captain, took six for 34 and six for 66. Nobody on either side made more than 64, and no innings passed 172.
One hundred and forty-five
West Indies put Pakistan in and had them 22 for five. Wes Hall took four of the five. Wallis Mathias made 64 in 180 minutes from number six, Shujauddin 26, and the total was 145 in 75.3 overs, all of it on the first day.
Seventy-six
West Indies were 46 for two overnight. On the second morning they lost eight wickets for 30. Garry Sobers made 29, Gerry Alexander 14, Basil Butcher 11, and then the card reads 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0 not out. Six of the eleven did not score. The last seven wickets went for 20 runs.
Fazal bowled 18.3 overs, nine maidens, six for 34. Nasim-ul-Ghani bowled seven overs, five maidens, three for 4. The total was 76, and the lead was 69.
Full scorecard: Pakistan v West Indies, 2nd Test, Dacca, 6–8 March 1959 →
One hundred and forty-four
Pakistan made 144 the second time, one less than the first. Mathias 45 again the top score, Ijaz Butt 21 in 135 minutes, Saeed Ahmed 22. Hall four for 49, Eric Atkinson four for 42, Sonny Ramadhin two for 10 in 15 overs. The target was 214.
One hundred and seventy-two
Fazal took the first four: John Holt caught behind for 5, Alexander caught behind for 18, Rohan Kanhai leg before for 8, Butcher bowled for 8. West Indies were 48 for four. Sobers and Collie Smith put on 65, Sobers 45 and Smith 39, and at 113 Sobers was caught by Fazal off Mahmood Hussain.
Joe Solomon was caught off Fazal at 134 and Smith bowled by him at 141. Mahmood Hussain took the last three, and the total was 172 in 60.5 overs, on the third day of a match scheduled for five. Fazal: 27 overs, ten maidens, 66 runs, six wickets. Twelve for 100 in the match.
The ground
The card’s heading says Dhaka and its match details say Dacca Stadium, and both are the same place. In 1959 it was a Pakistan home ground, in the eastern wing of the country, and Pakistan led the series 2-0 there. The ground’s first Test had been Pakistan against India in January 1955. Its last, fifty years later in January 2005, was Bangladesh against Zimbabwe, because by then the city was another country’s capital.
A Pakistan home Test at Dacca cannot be played again. The card is one of the few records of the time when it could, and it does not treat the fact as unusual, because on 8 March 1959 it was not.
Two men on both sides of the card
Mathias made 64 and 45, the top score in each Pakistan innings, and nobody else on his side passed 26 in either. Hall took four for 28 and four for 49, eight in the match, and had Pakistan 22 for five on the first morning. On another card either would be the performance. Here they are the second and third lines, under a captain who took twelve.
The umpires were Khwaja Saeed and Munawar Hussain. The card lists no player of the match, because the award did not exist, and it is not hard to guess who would have had it.
What the card holds
Four innings, 537 runs, 40 wickets, three days. Six noughts in one innings. A captain who bowled 45.3 overs and took twelve wickets, and caught a thirteenth. Two totals for Pakistan a run apart, 145 and 144. And a venue named twice, in the spelling of the time and the spelling of now, on the same page.
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No. 8 in Unrepeatable, a series of 22.
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