Ahmed Khaishgi
Pakistan
Location: San Francisco, USA


The earliest memory that I have of cricket is as a hazy but very distinct one.  I was 5 years old and Majid Khan hit a century before lunch against New Zealand in 1976.  I don't remember anything else about that series - just that century before lunch.   However, the moment of truth - when a charm became an obsession was in 1982.  We were in London that summer and Pakistan beat England at Lord's with Mudassar Nazar taking 6/32.

Most of all, it was Imran.  It was Imran that first half of the 80s who finally made Pakistani fans believe that we could be ferocious.   We didn't just have to be spinners and batsman.

Unfortunately for myself, I was never a good cricket player.  I was an adequate one at the street level and the high-school level, but never improved much beyond that.  A basic batting style of blocking most balls never transformed itself into a shot making one.  I blame that on the fact that I went to a cricket coaching academy when I was 7 or 8 and they basically made you practice drills for hours of playing with just your left hand and having a rock solid forward defensive stroke.   Therefore, the little that I have played - it has been as a Chris Tavare style blocking opener.

In a way, I have been lucky that I have only haphazardly lived in cricket playing countries.  With the level of cricket played these days and the amount of cricket shown on TV, I would have become a complete couch potato, and really not progressed much further with my life.

I will have the advantage of giving my opinions on games and players without actually seeing many of the games.  But numbers and statistics bring their own insights at times.

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