By Jim Morrison
Here is the 8th of 12 Key Player Profiles as we rapidly approach the Over-50s Cricket World Cup 2020 in South Africa.
With a squad full of star players, Pakistan cruised to the final of the 2018 Over-50s World Cup, only to lose a nailbiter to hosts Australia. Today we look at a key new member of the Pakistan Veterans Cricket Association team: Mahmood Hamid.
Hamid made his first-class debut on his 18th birthday, in 1987 and now, 33 years later, is set to make his Over-50s International debut for Pakistan
While he only scored 3 and 0 on that debut, Hamid went on to have a very distinguished career. He played 177 first-class matches, 127 List-A matches and a solitary ODI for Pakistan in 1994/95.
He amassed 9438 first-class runs, including 22 centuries, with a best of 208 and an excellent average of 41.94. His off-spin bowling was best suited to List-A cricket, where he snaffled 61 wickets at 30.57.
His one international match came against Sri Lanka and was rather unlucky: he was run out for 1, didn’t bowl, and was never selected again. (While we certainly don't want to cast blame for the run out, it is worth mentioning that his batting partner was a certain Inzamam Ul-Haq ...)
Hamid played in the Lancashire League for a couple of seasons, where he encountered players such as Stephen Foster (the world’s #1-ranked over-50s cricketer) and played in an interesting series for Pakistan Seniors against India Seniors back in 2007. That series was more “celebrity cricket” than today’s serious over-50s stuff, but India’s side still featured names such as Azharuddin, Hirwani, and Prabhakar, while the Pakistan line-up include Abdul Qadir and Ijaz Ahmed, as well as some members of Pakistan’s 2018 O50s World Cup squad in Ghulam Ali and Ghaffar Kazmi.
Like most of the top over-50s players, Hamid has never stopped playing cricket. He currently plays every week, either at veterans or at club level. He is inspired to keep going by “the passion of cricket, meeting former players every week, and fitness”.
He was aware of the 2018 Over-50s World Cup, as the tournament received quite a lot of attention in Pakistan. As a former international, Mahmood feels a degree of pressure to perform. He also feels the standard of the World Cup will be high, although he feels this will be “because of well-known international cricketers participating”. He is most looking forward to playing “competitive cricket” with players of a similar age.
Pakistan play a warm-up match before flying out, then have their first competitive match on March 11 against a big potential banana peel in Namibia. Their second match - against India on March 13 - will be much anticipated. As a reminder, all matches will be live-streamed (links provided here).
Impact: A relative youngster, at just 50, Hamid will be a key player for a Pakistan side missing a couple of its big names from the Sydney World Cup. I’m picking him to be right up there among the top run-scorers for Pakistan, while his offies could also be more than useful.
Evergreen Lifestyle is a proud sponsor of Over 50s Cricket World Cup in South Africa
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