When Javed Miandad played as an amateur for Daisy Hill

By Mike Latham

We all have heroes growing up. One of mine was Javed Miandad.

He played cricket for a team close to where I lived, Daisy Hill, one of the oldest established clubs in the Bolton & District Association, south of Westhoughton on the road to Leigh. Daisy Hill are now members of the Greater Manchester Cricket League.

For a village club it has a rich cricketing history, founded in 1896 and having played at the present St James Street ground since 1911. Dick Pollard, Dick Naylor and Billy Farrimond are among its famous alumni. In more recent times West Indies great Sonny Ramadhin and Pakistan Test players such as Taslim Arif, Qasim Omar and Ehtesamuddin featured in their ranks.

The latter was famously called out of Bolton Association action to open the bowling for Pakistan against England at Headingley in 1982. The Pakistan management sent along Wasim Raja as sub-professional.

Cricket at Daisy Hill in 2019

But Javed Miandad is the player I most associate with the club. My dad and me used to watch football in the winter months, Bolton Wanderers at home one Saturday, Bury the next. The fixtures always worked out that way. My dad’s friend, Jack Hetherington joined us when we went to Gigg Lane. Jack was a grand bloke and in the summer months he loved his cricket.

Jack was a long-standing umpire in the Bolton Association and in 1975 he alerted me that Daisy Hill had a newcomer in their ranks. ‘Get along as soon as you get chance,’ Jack told me. ‘This lad is special.’

Daisy Hill were captained by Jimmy Irani, whose son Ronnie went on to play for Essex and England. Jimmy batted four or five and had a good line in Pakistani professionals. The incumbent that year was Aslam Qureshi, a hugely talented bowler but Jimmy then played a masterstroke and recruited 18-year-old Javed as an amateur in mid-season, on the recommendation of Sadiq Mohammad.

Javed had already scored a triple hundred in Pakistan domestic cricket and had featured in the 1975 World Cup, played early season in England. The Association officials deliberated for a fortnight before granting his registration and he finally made his Daisy Hill debut at Hawker Siddeley, a ground not far from where the current Bolton Wanderers ground is located, behind the factory that became British Aerospace, since demolished. The club is now known as Lostock and has a lovely new ground close to the M61 motorway between the Westhoughton and Horwich turn-offs.

The new Lostock CC ground

Though his debut was inauspicious, a modest 1-22 and did not bat, Javed soon made people sit up and take notice. In his next game he took 7-12 and scored 45 against Farnworth Social Circle, followed up with 8-31 at Edgworth, then six wickets and an unbeaten 82 at Clifton. As Daisy Hill closed in towards retaining their title, he took 6-29 at Astley & Tyldesley, including the prize wicket of their Pakistan pro Mohsin Khan, bowled for 30.

Javed finished the season with 62 wickets at 9.25, Qureshi taking 101 at 9.36.

In the long hot summer of 1976 Javed was back at Daisy Hill, this time as pro, future Test wicketkeeper Taslim Arif the overseas amateur. It was a classic season for the Association with Mudassar Nazar re-writing the record books with his prolific run-scoring at Little Hulton. I’ll write in more detail about that year, which included the greatest ever Cross Cup Final in a future blog.

Suffice to say for now that Javed scored 1,333 runs at 70.10 and took 127 wickets at 10.80 in league and cup as Daisy Hill won the league for a third successive season.

He lit up the cricket grounds of Bolton with his engaging smile, zest for the game, wonderfully attacking batting and mesmerising leg-spin bowling. Jack was right- he was special.

Javed’s Test debut soon followed, and he went on to become a world star. Whenever I got the chance, I went along to watch Javed in the future, mostly playing for Glamorgan in the county championship and was fortunate enough to see him score several first-class hundreds.

 

After one, for Glamorgan at Bristol against Gloucestershire, a friend took a photo, developed and printed it overnight and came back to the ground with it the following day. I got Javed to sign it, which he was pleased to do, enquiring about his old friend Jack the Umpire as he did so.

 I found my photos the other day of Old Trafford, Saturday 13 July 1985; here, Javed Miandad is on his way to a century for Glamorgan against Lancashire on the opening day of the county championship fixture.

 

Javed is shown on driving Jack Simmons with Steve O’Shaughnessy taking evasive action.

 

In the second photograph of that day Javed hooks David Makinson.

 In this game Javed finished the day 121 not out and, resuming on the Monday ended undefeated on 164. The three-day game ended up drawn. On the Sunday he scored 51 in the John Player Special League game that ended up a tie and featured a century by Clive Lloyd.