Pakistan v Australia Tests - Men
Ahead of Australia's Test match against Pakistan in Karachi, look back four decades to their controversial 1982 campaign, which was marred by crowd violence at the National Stadium
The gulf that separates the experience facing Australia's current men's Test team as they begin battle at Karachi's National Stadium and that of their predecessors on the 1982 tour seemingly stretches much further than four decades.
For starters, the outfit Pat Cummins has led on Australia's first visit to the Islamic republic since 1998 comprises the best Test cricketers available for selection, carrying a collective hunger to compete having contested just nine matches over the preceding two-and-a-half years, none of which were played overseas.
By contrast, in the year and a bit prior to arriving in Pakistan in September 1982, Australia had completed a stretch of 15 Tests including a six-match Ashes campaign in the UK and a tour to New Zealand in the immediate aftermath of home summer series against Pakistan and West Indies.
As a result, captain Greg Chappell opted out of the team (citing personal and business reasons for his unavailability) and the team led by his recalled replacement Kim Hughes was also missing fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Len Pascoe.
Lillee had sustained cartilage damage to his right knee during the NZ tour, but his keenness to travel was certainly dulled by memories of his 1980 series in Pakistan that netted the fast bowling great three wickets at an average of 101 across three winless Tests.
Further destabilising the 15-man squad was wicketkeeper Rod Marsh's refusal to serve as Hughes's deputy, claiming he wished "to give a younger player the experience of being vice-captain" although his frustration at being overlooked for the leadership was deemed the real reason.
Allan Border was appointed to the role despite his reluctance, and he and Hughes formed the tour selection panel along with opener Bruce Laird.
Marsh was also late to arrive for the tour having remained at home in Perth where his youngest son, Jamie, was unwell and Wayne Phillips kept wickets in the first warm-up match before Marsh joined and took the gloves in the opening ODI in Hyderabad.
Then there was the level of amenity afforded the visitors, which paled alongside the head-of-state security and plush accommodation available to Cummins' team for whom the greatest risk thus far has been keeper Alex Carey's unintentional dip in the pool of their Karachi hotel.
While lodgings in the major Pakistan cities were comfortable in 1982, trips to more regional locations such as Sialkot (near the Indian border in disputed Punjab) where Hughes's men played a tour match against between the second and third Tests was essentially guest house.
On those ventures, the Australians took with them chefs from reputable city hotels to prepare meals outdoors over wood fires and gas stoves under supervision of team doctor Paul Koenig, but most of the touring party suffered from stomach and gastrointestinal troubles throughout the 43-day stay.
However, the most demonstrable difference between Australia's current campaign and the wretched experience of 1982 – when Hughes became the first skipper to oversee a Test series whitewash away from home, and a tour that failed to produce a single win in any format – is the response from local fans.
If the ambience of the first Test at Rawalpindi last week is recreated in Karachi, then Australia's players will be welcomed as cherished guests and celebrated almost as joyously as Pakistan's home-grown heroes.
It could hardly be more different to the reception Hughes's team endured at the National Stadium, firstly when they began the Test series in Pakistan's steamy port city and then in even more volatile and violent scenes when they returned for the final one-dayer three weeks later.
Having scored a 2-1 win over Pakistan at home less than a year earlier – a series best remembered for Lillee's on-field clash with Javed Miandad at the WACA – Hughes felt his team stood a better chance than the 1980 tourists.
That optimism was boosted by WACA curator John Maley's visit to Pakistan in 1981 during which he tracked down suitable soil and advised pitches be re-laid at Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad.
"We hope to provide some good cricket in Pakistan, but only if we get good wickets," Hughes observed on arrival, while also suggesting if better pitches had been prepared for the previous tour, Lillee would likely have made the trip.
The first 40-over ODI at Hyderabad provided an inkling of what lay ahead, not only in Pakistan's comfortable 59-run win but the crowd disturbances that regularly punctuated it.
More than 30,000 spectators squeezed into a venue designed to hold around 25,000, and despite the presence of up to 3,000 police and the recent installation of a two-metre high steel fence tipped with steel lances, the protection for the playing arena was quickly found to be riddled with loopholes.
When Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas – filling in for now-Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was suffering a side strain – was caught for 26, spectators swarmed through the ineffective fence and made a beeline for opener Mohsin Khan, who was approaching a century.
Hughes was confronted by one young spectator who rolled theatrically on the turf when pushed away by the Australia captain, and when Mohsin duly reached his ton the invasion was repeated as fans attempted to lay garlands upon the mobbed batter as well as Border, who was fielding at square leg.
An announcement was made late in Pakistan's innings that if the behaviour continued, the game would be abandoned and both teams would return to Karachi. But crowd members kept pelting police with stones during the innings break and one unfortunate youth was impaled atop the fence and taken to hospital.
The mood within the touring party had not lifted come the start of the first Test in Karachi two days later when Australia team manager (and former Test umpire) Col Egar bemoaned the state of the National Stadium pitch, noting it sported less grass than when he'd seen it two years previously.
Then, on day two of the match, the temperature was raised further when Mohsin fended a ball from fast bowler Geoff Lawson into the pitch and instinctively knocked it away with his left hand as it spun back towards the stumps, prompting Australia to successfully appeal for 'handled ball'.
Mahboob Shah, the umpire who adjudged Mohsin out to the disdain of the Karachi crowd, had earlier been involved in an exchange with Lawson, who felt he had Pakistan's opener caught behind off his glove.
That incident flared in the over prior to lunch on day two, and as the players left the field for the break, a clearly annoyed Lawson attempted to snatch his canvas hat from umpire Mahboob who refused to surrender it, with Hughes intervening to broker a truce.
Tension was building, and the following day – as Australia's inept catching helped Pakistan forge a hefty first-innings lead – it spilled over as a section of the 10,000 spectators began hurling whatever projectiles they could lay their hands upon at the hapless visiting outfielders.
Greg Ritchie, who was making his Test debut, tried to alert Mahboob's umpiring partner Khizer Hayat to the unrest by lobbing one of the stones aimed at him in the official's direction, but it struck Hayat on the leg which forced another mediation from Hughes to explain Ritchie's intention to the miffed umpire.
That unleashed a barrage of rocks and vegetables from a crowd of around 2,000 (mostly students) in the general admission section, and Hughes took his players from the field for around quarter of an hour.
But a more serious incursion erupted an hour or so after play resumed when fans congregated directly behind bowler Jeff Thomson and – upon an agreed signal – began showering the field with stones followed by a mass invasion of the playing arena.
According to news reports from the scene, the crowd was not only enraged by on-field matters but had raised with Karachi's District Police Commissioner their dissatisfaction with the lack of shade provided for spectators having also previously threatened to damage the stadium if Zaheer Abbas was not selected.
To vent their fury, they ripped down advertising signs and destroyed plastic chairs as ground announcers broadcast endless pleas in Urdu for them to calm down and stop distracting the Pakistan batters who were "in a strong position".
When Karachi's top policeman accompanied local cricket-association officials to plead with the rioters to stop, they were in turn pelted with a hail of stones, vegetables and water bombs.
As the violence played out, Hughes again led his players off the field and the game was interrupted for almost half an hour as riot police threatened to deploy tear gas and an assortment of rocks, onions and potatoes were collected from the outfield where they had been hurled.
"I'm not going to let my fellows' heads be cut open by razor-sharp stones," Hughes told reporters at the end of the day's play.
"We should have gone off earlier, but I was sorry for the umpires and the other people who had paid good money to see cricket.
"We are here to play cricket and are being treated like animals.
"We can take the verbal abuse, but I've reached a position where our blokes don't want to field at fine leg.
"No wonder other cricketing countries are loath to come here."
Pakistan fast bowler Sikander Bakht – a member of the television commentary team for the current Qantas Tour – had not been selected for that 1982 Test, but noted "I don't blame the Australians for going off".
Egar was seen carrying a cricket-ball size rock sporting jagged edges as he returned to the players area, but when he spoke with the travelling Australia media representatives at day's end, he displayed only the vegetables that had been flung in anger.
Pakistan wrapped up their nine-wicket win after less than an hour's play on the fifth day, with just 1500 fans at the ground to witness and celebrate their team's emphatic victory.
From that moment, Australia's compounding grievances simmered barely beneath the surface.
In the second Test at Faisalabad, Lawson took issue with umpire Hayat when adjudged lbw for a duck and reportedly asked "do you call that umpiring?" as he walked between the official and the successful bowler, leg spinner Abdul Qadir, whose name (along with Richie Benaud's) adorns the trophy for the current series.
Hayat was so incensed by the incident he subsequently lodged a formal complaint about Lawson's conduct with the Pakistan Cricket Board, in which he claimed he had responded to the barbed query by pointing out "I have given only one leg before wicket in two Tests."
Although by that stage of the Test series, the lbw count stood 6-0 in the home team's favour.
Hughes delivered a "do-or-die" team talk before the final Test at Lahore, but the only visible sign of resistance came when Thomson kicked down the bowler's end stumps having been no-balled by umpire Shakoor Rana.
"It was most un-Thomson-like behaviour and I'm sure he regretted it as soon as he'd done it", Marsh later wrote.
"But he'd had enough of Pakistan. We all had."
After Australia squandered a solid start to their first innings and lost their final six first-innings wickets for 119, sports editor of the local Pakistan Times English language newspaper described the visitors batting as "gutless".
It triggered an impassioned rebuttal from Egar who demanded an apology, pointed out the touring party was suffering from a lack of match practice having come out of Australian winter and flagged he would recommend to the Australian Cricket Board that teams no longer undertake subcontinent tour outside their home season.
That came after Imran, who had recovered from injury in time for the Tests, responded to the visitors' complaints by suggesting: "It's just as well you people can't read Urdu - those papers are really giving you the stick."
The final flashpoint came early in the tour finale, the third ODI which saw the teams return to Karachi.
The game was barely a quarter-of-an-hour old when Lawson was seen throwing a stone that had been aimed at him back into the crowd, which brought about an immediate discussion that included Hughes and umpires Rana and Amanullah Khan.
The Australia captain pleaded with fans to stop the bombardment that contained rotten fruit as well as nuts and bolts, but the attack continued and when – with Pakistan 1-39 after 11 overs – Lawson was struck on the leg by another projectile, Hughes once more ordered his team from the field.
Discussions continued for almost an hour between the rival captains, umpires and team officials as Hughes aired the prospect of abandoning the game, but Egar convinced his skipper to return to the field in the hope of placating the mob.
An over later, with Ritchie having been struck while fielding at deep mid-wicket and fast bowler Ian Callen also copping missiles to the leg and foot, the Australians had endured enough and the match – as well as the forgettable tour – was over.
Imran, known as the 'Lion of Lahore' in his playing days, reportedly told Hughes: "I don't blame you going off. They throw things at me here too."
But it was reputedly Zaheer Abbas who gave the Australia skipper the most urgent advice as the players retreated to the comparative safety of the pavilion.
"Get away as soon as you can, back to the hotel," Zaheer, who hailed from the trouble-prone region of Sialkot, reportedly warned.
"It won't get any better."
Both teams heeded that warning, and as Karachi police and firefighting officers waged battle with the enraged crowd upon news of the game's abandonment being confirmed, the Australia and Pakistan players were engaging in a friendly water polo game in the pool of the hotel they shared.
As the crowd of officially 30,000 (thought to be closer to 35,000) tore up seats, hurled stones and set fire to the very awnings they had lobbied to have installed, riot police mounted a baton charge and then fired tear gas cannisters in an attempt to gain control as the fight spilled into surrounding streets.
Compounding the problem was the decision by local authorities to use security volunteers rather than serving police to maintain order at the game, supposedly to keep trained forces "in reserve", which was interpreted by the tourists as a reluctance to put paid officers directly in harm's way.
Egar's request to urgently speak with the officer in charge after the first walk off yielded no result, and the official in question still had not appeared by the time both teams evacuated the National Stadium an hour later.
And although events of that tour sparked suggestions Karachi's suitability as a venue for international cricket should be reviewed, just months later it hosted a Test and ODI against India, which presented the potential for even greater unrest given the neighbours' fraught history.
Perhaps the most sanguine view of the Karachi experience – which is sure to offer an entirely different ambience for the second Test starting today – was delivered with the late Rodney Marsh's flint-dry humour.
"(I) asked around, and people in the know said the mob had nothing against us personally," Marsh reflected on the 1982 experience upon his return to Australia.
"No, they were protesting because they wanted a new grandstand built at the ground.
"They've a funny way of expressing themselves in Pakistan."
Pakistan squad: Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (vc), Abdullah Shafique, Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Saud Shakeel, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Zahid Mahmood.
Australia Test squad: Pat Cummins (c), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Mark Steketee, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner. On standby: Sean Abbott, Brendan Doggett, Nic Maddinson, Matthew Renshaw
March 12-16: Second Test, Karachi
March 21-25: Third Test, Lahore
Australia ODI and T20 squad: Aaron Finch (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa
April 5: Only T20I, Rawalpindi
All matches to be broadcast in Australia on Fox Cricket and Kayo Sports
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