THE Friendship series, logically reasoning, should be poised on the edge of a see-saw today, with the 'kar' part of Tendulkar imposing the compulsion to 'do it'. Who but our Cricket Board could have conceptualised a Friendship series with Pakistan and then made Sachin Tendulkar captain of India!

Can India and Pakistan be friends on a cricket field? They can, going by the against-all-odds example set by Imran Khan. This Canadian occasion, therefore, is the oasis-in-the-Sahara one on which to pay tribute to the spirit of the man who did so much to ensure that Indian and Pakistan teams would remain friends, at least off the field, if deadly rivals in the middle.

This deadly rivalry comes tele-vividly to mind as we relive 'The Imran Effect' so tellingly felt when the Khan from Pakistan cut through the Indian batting like a Patton tank, in the not-so-glad 1982-83 season, to return that incredible series haul of 40 wickets at 13.95 runs each. That this happened in the grudge series between the two countries (following Pakistan's 2-0 rout by Gavaskar's India early in 1980) lent form and meaning to the threat hurled by Majid Khan during the December 1979 Bombay Test: ''Come to Pakistan and we will show you!"

What a show in Pakistan it was by Majid's nephew, Imran Khan, in 1982-83 to sew up the Karachi Test (with match figures of 11 for 79); the Faislabad Test (with 11 for 182); and the Hyderabad (Sind) Test with (8 for 80). That decided the rubber 3-0 in favour of Pakistan, setting the stage for our Cricket Board to summon Kapil Dev, 'on the quiet', across the Wagah border _ behind the back-to-the-wall of skipper Sunil Gavaskar, who thus realised how vainly he had batted through the Indian innings (127 not out) in the Faisalabad Test.

Imran Khan's Pakistan now 'claimed' Sunil Gavaskar as captain _ like Mushtaq Mohammad's Pakistan had undone Bishan Singh Bedi as leader, four years earlier. As Gavaskar lost the '82-83 series and the Indian captaincy, he had ruefully to concede that he had seen no bowler in the world swing the ball the way Imran Khan did in those six Tests. The dice and the ball alike looked 'loaded' against India. The phenomenon of a highly penetrative fastie like Imran Khan being adept enough to 'reverse swing' a series was unknown till then.

The man who handpicked the new ball for Imran Khan, in each one of those three decisive Tests, was Sarfraz Nawaz, his bete noire today. Imran is on record as saying that he always wanted Sarfraz Nawaz by his side, if only to spot out the new ball that would get things 'moving' for Pakistan. ''He always seemed to know which ball would swing more and, as a result, Sarfraz would always make the choice when the umpires presented a box of new balls to us, just before we went out on the field,'' notes Imran Khan in his Autobiography, published in the very year (1983) in which Gavaskar's India came to be 'smashed to pulp' in Pakistan. ''Sarfraz taught me more about swing bowling than anybody,'' adds Imran, ''disclosing to me little titbits he refused to discuss with other bowlers.''

Such was Imran's efficacy with the new ball of Sarfraz's choice that the Indian players even suspected that the red cherry was 'doctored'. What baffled Gavaskar, Amarnath, Visvanath and Vengsarkar was how Imran could in-dip so right-angularly on pitches on which, in those three Tests that mattered, Kapil Dev, disastrously for India, lost his outswinger altogether!

Maybe Krish Srikkanth later cut Imran Khan to size, starting with 123 in the Chepauk Test. But, after the first four matches of that well-contested 1986-87 series with Pakistan in India had been drawn, Imran Khan still managed, in the final Test at Bangalore, to snatch the rubber, by 16 runs, from under Kapil's Wagah nose. And that without himself sending down a ball, in the second innings of that Bangalore Test! But Imran was back to peak pace as he took the Pakistan team, triumphant, from India to England. In that 1987 English summer, Imran showed his true pedigree as a genuine fast bowler of indubitable world class 21 wickets at 21.66 each from 5 tests.

On Indian pitches, Imran Khan _ like Kapil Dev before him _ had huffed and puffed in his effort to reach the 300 Test wickets' milestone. Imran could move up to only 291 wickets in the five Tests in India during 1986-87. But in the 1987 summer series later in England, Imran regained his lost swerve and verve. In doing so, he clinched the 'core' Leeds Test and the rubber 1-0 for Pakistan, roaring past the 300 Test wickets' mark like the bull of Bashan.

That his personal landmark coincided with Pakistan's first series win in England, after 35 years in Test cricket, restored to Imran his aura as a media hero. He had turned up trumps with the ball in the moment most meaningful for Pakistan. In fulfilling his ambition of beating India in a series in India and England in England, Imran Khan took Pakistan cricket to an unprecedented high (hitting 118 in the final Test at the Oval). His achievement prompted Asif Iqbal to write:
''Although success of the type enjoyed by Pakistan now has eluded them in the past, it would be difficult to say that this (1987) team is the greatest Pakistan side ever. Man for man, it is perhaps not. But Pakistan now have a fighting spirit and unity in their side, which they never had before, and this, more than anything else, has made them the power they are today. They do not give up and, with the slightest smell of blood in their nostrils, they go for the kill.

''The man responsible for this'', went on Asif Iqbal, ''is Imran Khan who, by personal example and dedication, has moulded a band of individually talented players into a superb fighting unit. Among the many things he has given to Pakistan cricket, this, in my view, is the most precious and something for which he deserves the everlasting gratitude of his countrymen. It would be a great finale to a great career if Imran could win the World Cup for Pakistan _ or, more aptly, if Pakistan could win the World Cup for Imran.''

Pakistan could not in 1987, but turned up trumps in 1992. Imran Khan lifted that World Cup team from the cricket bootstraps as Pakistan beat Border's Australia by 48 runs in that tablesturning league encounter at Perth on March 11, 1992; then had the measure of De Silva's Sri Lanka by 4 wickets on March 15, again at Perth; and put it across Crowe's New Zealand by 7 wickets at Lancaster Park, Christchurch, on March 18 to nose out Australia in the final tally of points. Pakistan finished fourth with 9 points ( to Australia's 8) to qualify for the knockout semifinal stage.

Pakistan thus had peaked to a point where, under Imran, it could easily beat New Zealand afresh (by 4 wickets) at Eden Park, Auckland, even when chasing 263 to win in 50 overs. Pakistan raced past 262 in 49 overs, having lost but 6 wickets, as Imran's find, Inzamam-ul-Haq (60 run out), starred in a quickfire 87-run stand with Javed Miandad (57 not out at the finish). After that, what happened in the final against Gooch's England is World Cup lore. Wasim Akram, with figures of 10-0-49-3, came to be named Man of the Match.

Asif Iqbal, who could but hope in 1987 that Imran would win the World Cup for Pakistan, was himself a most balanced captain. He believed, like Imran, that a Test match between India and Pakistan was a game, not a war. Yet Asif Iqbal, somehow, could not synthesise Pakistan into the kind of fighting force Imran did by his personal magnetism.

Indeed, things got to a point where, at the end of the deciding January 1980 fifth Test at Chepauk that Inda won by 10 wickets to seal the series 2-0, Asif Iqbal had to admit, in front of a TV audience of millions in Pakistan, that Gavaskar and co. had outplayed his country. Before he so graciously acknowledged Gavaskar's India as the better team on Doordarshan, Asif Iqbal was reminded by the invitee Pak commentator, Iftikhar, that his voice was all set to go to Pakistan. In other words, that President Zia ul Haq was listening. It was a veiled hint by Iftikhar to Asif Iqbal to choose his words with care. Yet Asif Iqbal, in that testing moment, chose to hold nothing back from Gavaskar for the way Sunil had integrated India into a winning combination against the run of 1978 play.

Pakistan never forgave Asif Iqbal for the grand gesture. For Pakistan, the 2-0 rubber win at home, in October-November 1978 (on the resumption of cricket hostilities between India and Pakistan), had been the ultimate achievement by the nation. Ziaul-Haq had then made at the ground a spot appearance on Pakistan TV to talk of the ''Yeh jeet jo nazar aa raha hai'' at a time when the home team still had 126 runs to get in the final stretch to win the Lahore Test!

I recall that moment to recreate the peculiarly hostile milieu in which India and Pakistan resumed playing against each other after two wars _ after an 18-year hiatus. The atmosphere was no less electric as, following Mushtaq Mohammad's 2-0 triumph, Asif Iqbal led Pakistan to India for that 1979-80 series. This was the series in which, to quote from Wisden, ''there was a very apparent division of loyalties within the (touring) party; discipline was low, with players distracted by commercial and social interests. However, the Pakistanis, whose only win on tour was against a weak East Zone side,'' concluded Wisden, ''would not come to terms with their shortcomings. Instead, they looked elsewhere for the cause of their failures. They alleged bias on the part of the umpires and in Bombay...''

That Bombay Test had been all but lost by Pakistan by the time we came to the rest day _ falling after the third day of play _ on December 19, 1979. Up to that point, Asif Iqbal had been careful to stress, right through the tour, that he had grown up in the game, mentally conditioned never to question the umpire's decision. But now, on the rest day of that acrimonious Bombay Test,Asif Iqbal called a press conference.

That he did so against his better judgment was obvious, for whatever he said now would only sound an alibi for Pakistan's impending defeat in the Bombay Test. Also obvious was the fact that Asif Iqbal was pressured into resorting to such an extreme measure by the more influential pressmen travelling with the Pakistan team. For it was Pak pressman after Pak pressman who made it a point to inform Indian journalist after Indian journalist that it was a conference not to be missed.

At this meet in his hotel room, Asif Iqbal, even while conceding the umpire's suzerainty, subtly questioned it in that Bombay Test, at the very least! By then, Asif Iqbal himself had failed to get his bat away from a Dilip Doshi ball that 'stood up', for the catch to dolly to Visvanath in the slips. That made Pakistan 145 for 6, Asif Iqbal having raced to 26 in a desperate attempt to hit Pakistan out of trouble on a wearing wicket. Thus the onus was straight on him for the parlous plight in which Pakistan found itself on that rest day. And Asif Iqbal, going against his cricketing grain, took the easy way out by suggesting that it was all, perhaps, the doing of the two umpires: K. B. Ramaswami and S. N. Hanumantha Rao.

Imran Khan faced similar 'umpire pressure' again and again during his tenure as Pakistan's captain. Following his 1-0 wrap-up of the 1986-87 series in India, Pakistan was under tremendous pressure to beat India at Sharjah, too, less than a month later. As Imran and his men managed to put it across Kapil Dev's India by 8 wickets, the Pakistan captain openly expressed his sense of anxiety at the 'hate atmosphere' that prevailed between the Indians and the Pakistanis (residents in Sharjah) on the day of the contest (April 10).

This atmosphere is best summed up by the response of a Gulf Indian to a Pak expat's comforting observation: ''It's only a game _ one side has to win, one side has to lose.'' The Indian expat's counter; ''I know it's only a game, still I wish that I, and not you, was in a position to point out: 'it's only a game _ one side has to win, one side has to lose!''

The point should never be lost on us, therefore, that Imran Khan, as Pakistan's captain, worked unflaggingly to defuse the tension between the two countries. Asif Iqbal, too, tried to do this initially, only to lapse into the familiar subcontinental syndrome. So much so that Asif Iqbal ended up noting: ''I don't think cricket helps bring two nations together. If anything, it only adds to the complications.''

Imran's ceaseless endeavour was to see that he did not at least add to the complication. In the March 1987 Bangalore Test that was played out in such a tense atmosphere, both India and Pakistan were guilty of sledgeing. And Javed Miandad, characteristically, was more guilty than most. He even psyched the normally imperturbable Mohinder Amarnath (c Salim Yousuf b Wasim Akram 0) into yielding his one-drop wicket at what was a crucial moment in that final Test for India.

Javed Miandad even Imran Khan could not control. But, by fielding at a discreet distance, Imran shrewdly retained the option, right through that edge-of-precipice Test, to step in during the moment that mattered and smooth ruffled feelings.

How did Imran manage the miracle of reasonably normal relations between two teams that had been perpetually at war during the 35 years in which they had confronted each other in 40 Tests? Imran did so by boldly opting for neutral umpires in Tests. And Imran did so, with surpassing cleverness, not in an India-Pakistan series, but in a West Indies-Pakistan series. He took the wind out of the sails of our long-standing grouse against Pak. umpiring by asking for two Indian umpires (Pilloo Reporter and V. K. Ramaswamy) to stand during the West Indies-Pakistan series in his country.

Thus, in one diplomatic stroke, Imran restored to Indo-Pak. cricket a sanity without which there can be no meaningful Toronto contest. Sad to say, India was slow to follow Imran's umpiring lead. We insisted on Indian umpires standing during the 1986-87 series at home against Pakistan.

Imran Khan could succeed where Asif Iqbal had failed because he had been a doer all his life. He had, in fact, been on the point of losing the February 1987 Eden Gardens Test. If Kapil Dev had not let Imran off the hook then, India very likely, would have gone one-up in the series by the stage of the second Test itself. Similarly, Imran was on the verge of losing the 1987 Old Trafford Test (the very first) to Gatting's England. Rain intervened to obviate the possibility of Pakistan starting that watershed series one-down.

In both cases, Imran could have lost _ in fact, should have lost. If he had lost, there would have been no historic series to win in India. Or England. For nothing fails like failure in Pakistan _ as in India. But right through those 1986-87 series, first in India and then England, Imran gambled and gambled boldly. So he had the luck of the brave. He had been reviled in Pakistan, before those 1967-87 series in India and England, as a dictator. Now, suddenly, he was the benevolent dictator!

Who but a dictator could have got away with the arbitrary act of sending for player after player during the 1986-87 series in India! At one point, there were 19 players in the Pak. dressingroom, making a long-time cricket-watcher like me wonder whether Vizzy's record of 21 members, on our 1936 tour of England, was going to be excelled. From Iqbal Qasim to Younis Ahmed, each fresh summons by Imran was a gamble. But when a gamble succeeds, it is hailed as vision.

''Imran Khan is probably the greatest all-rounder in the world today,'' wrote Asif Iqbal in September 1987. ''With so many young men in the side, I would rate the Pakistan team as the finest fielding side in the competition. This is the first time in World Cup competition when Pakistan will not be pitted against the West Indies in the semifinals, which is the point at which we went out both in 1979 and 1983. There must be a message there somewhere''.

That message was that Pakistan yet again made it only to the (1987) World Cup semifinal! that Imran's Pakistan lost to Border's Australia by just 18 runs in this semifinal in the galling setting of the Gaddafi Stadium _ was the rub of the Lahore green. Australia had been out of its depth against India a year earlier, while Pakistan, before going into the 1987 World Cup, had thrashed India 5-1 in the one-day series on the tour here. In this light, the Kangaroos should have been easy meat for Pakistan. But then there are no easy pickings ever in one-day cricket!

For all that, under Imran by 1987 the Pak. players for the first time, began to believe in themselves. Mushtaq Mohammad might have worked the oracle against India even before Imran. But Mushtaq had done so, late in 1978, with a team of world-beaters _ world- beaters specially released by Kerry Packer for that prestige series against India! Imran, by contrast, welded a band of a striplings into a team of world-beaters.

How did Imran do it? By playing the game hard. But never so hard that it ceased to be a game. ''Cricket is a game that is played with a hard ball that is struck equally hard with a bat. But it is, in the end, a game, after all,'' wrote Tiger Pataudi.

Maybe Imran played the game harder than Pataudi ever did. Yet it was under Imran's no-nonsense leadership that, for the first time, we saw Pakistan and Indian players step fearlessly into each other's dressing-rooms. Before that Wasim Raja was the only Pak. player to have ever ventured into the Indian dressing-room. For doing so, revealed Asif Iqbal jestingly under his own byline, Wasim Raja was nicknamed 'Traitor' by the Pakistan team!

'Traitor' Wasim Raja it was, ironically, who looked, time and again, like taking that 1979-80 series away from India, finishing at the top of the Pakistan averages with 450 runs from 10 innings in 6 Tests (for an average of 56.25). Never ever knowing the thing they call Indo-Pak. pressure, Wasim Raja always felt free to play his shots. Like Imran, Wasim Raja believed that you could be at your aggressive best against India on the field, yet friends off it.

How much friendship the Sahara series in Canada has generated remains a matter for conjecture at the time of writing. But we do know that 'friendship' was an idea that never crossed the two teams' minds until Imran Khan took over as Pakistan captain. And Imran here blazed a trail even while remaining fiercely combative. His courage of convinction in ploughing a lonely furrow is, hopefully, not lost on those who see the two-nation theory at play even in Canada _ so far and yet so near our TV set!

Raju Bharatan

Source: The Hindu