Master Abdul Aziz is best known as the coach who groomed the legendary Hanif Mohammad. However, not much is publicly known about the unusual and unique life journey of this foremost of Pakistani cricket coaches.

Abdul Aziz was born in Kabul in 1905, where his father worked for the Afghan king, Amanullah Khan, and also ran a dry fruit business supplying the Maharajas of Kathiawar. His elder brother obtained a degree in Automobile Engineering and migrated to Karachi in search of employment. Abdul Aziz accompanied him.

Endowed with an imposing physique Abdul Aziz was a good all round sportsman and apart from cricket also played hockey, tennis and football. In Karachi, he lived in the same locality as the illustrious cricketer Naoomal Jeeomal, who noticed his cricketing talent and encouraged him.

At the age of 18, Aziz made his debut in the Sindh Pentangular tournament as a wicketkeeper batsman. His performances led to his selection for the provincial side and also earned him a place in the Indian team for the 2nd unofficial Test against JK Ryder’s visiting Australian team of 1935-36.

His next big break came when he was playing for Sind against a visiting Nawanagar side. Nawanagar was the princely state that had been ruled by the famous cricketer Ranjitsinhji.

After Ranji’s death in 1933 an All India cricket tournament, the Ranji Trophy, was started in his memory. Ranji’s nephew and successor Jam Sahib Digvijaysinjhi began to raise a team to represent Nawanagar in this tournament. He was impressed by Abdul Aziz and persuaded him to move to Nawanagar (now known as Jamnagar) where he was given a job in the police department, which suited his big frame of a height of over six feet and a weight of 220 lbs.

In the Nawanagar team Aziz played alongside stars like Amar Singh and Vinoo Mankad and showed great courage as a wicketkeeper by standing up to Nawanagar’s vaunted pace bowling trio of Amar Singh, Mubarak Ali and Shute Bannerjee. A strong Nawanagar side won the Ranji Trophy in 1936-37 and were runners up the following year.

Aziz’s playing career ended prematurely when a cricket ball hit him in the eye leaving him with impaired vision. At partition, in 1947, he returned to his adopted hometown of Karachi while his wife and children stayed back in Nawangar. In the family that he left behind, was a twelve year old son called Salim who would go on to make his own name in the world of cricket... but more about that later.

In Karachi Abdul Aziz found employment as the cricket coach at the Sindh Madrassahtul Islam, the alma mater of the Quaid e Azam. He was one of a trio of gifted cricket coaches who played an instrumental role in developing school cricket in Karachi, from which many future Test stars of Pakistan emerged. Abdul Aziz at Sindh Madrassah, Jacob Harris at St Patrick’s and Naoomal Jeeomal at the Karachi Grammmar School were the members of this triumvirate.

Aziz’s most famous pupil was Pakistan’s star batsman Hanif Mohammad. Hanif was a child prodigy and was already making waves when Aziz saw him playing in a school match at the Fire Brigade Ground in Karachi in 1949. Hanif made a fifty and kept wickets in this match and recalled that a big, strong, dark skinned man who had been watching him play, approached him after the match and offered to take him to his school and meet the principal. He promised Hanif a free education, the prospect of cricket playing tours and to look after his cricket equipment needs. Hanif joined the Sindh Madrassah and on Aziz’s advice gave up other games like hockey, football, gilli danda and flying kites to focus on cricket alone.

Aziz taught Hanif to pull and hook by bouncing golf balls at him. He also encouraged Hanif to get off the back foot and play more strokes coming forwards. He worked on Hanif’s footwork to enable this and helped him to improve his driving skills and repertoire of shots. Another technique Aziz used was to suspend a ball from a string and ask his pupils to hit it repeatedly. This was only possible if the ball was hit straight and taught his students to play with a straight bat. As an umpire in some school matches, Aziz would often give Hanif not out to ensure him a longer batting stint at the wicket. He was also not averse to advising his star pupil to miss afternoon classes in order to play cricket. The term he used was to deliver a ‘googly’ to the teacher!

As Hanif’s father had passed away soon after partition, Aziz became a father figure for him. The success of his coaching methods were perhaps best recognised when Hanif was sent to Alf Gover’s famous cricket coaching school in London, in 1951. After reviewing Hanif’s technique Gover insisted that no changes were required and none should be attempted. This was the ultimate stamp of approval on Master Aziz’s efforts.

Aziz was most generous with spending his money on his students. In his autobiography Hanif mentions how Aziz would spend everything on buying his students shoes, gloves, bats and anything that they needed. Often, he would be left with nothing himself and would then ask a student to get him something to eat.

Master Aziz lived modestly in a single room within the school campus and devoted his entire time to training his pupils. In order to supplement his income he would sometimes umpire at matches and in 1957 also started writing a column for the evening newspaper “Leader”. The column provided coaching tips and was ghosted by the renowned cricket writer Qamar Ahmed, who was also briefly under his tutelage.

Apart from Hanif, Master Aziz also coached his brothers Wazir, Raees, Mushtaq and Sadiq, as well as a host of other promising cricketers like Ikram Elahi, his brother Anwar Elahi and Mohammad Munaf. He continued to mentor the Mohammad brothers even after they had become established test cricketers. In 1963 Mushtaq was playing for Pakistan against a visiting Commonwealth side that included many well known cricketing luminaries. One of these was the fearsome West Indian fast bowler Charlie Griffith who had felled the Indian opener and captain Nari Contracter a year earlier with a bouncer that broke his skull and nearly killed him. Mushtaq was having difficulty negotiating Griffith’s bouncers and hooking his short pitched deliveries. During the lunch interval he was approached by Master Aziz who gave him some tips about opening his stance so that he was more front-on, placing him in a better position to play the short ball. This resulted in a radical transformation and Mushtaq subsequently played Griffiths with ease and proceeded to score 178. Mushtaq retained this stance for the rest of his career.

Yet another cricketer who benefited from Master Aziz’s advice was the famous wicketkeeper Wasim Bari. Aziz told him that wicketkeepers need strong legs like boxers and asked him to skip rope regularly to strengthen his leg muscles.

In the early fifties Aziz was approached by the Governor General of the time Ghulam Mohammad to coach his grandson. Despite his great coaching skills Aziz was unable to make a cricketer out of this young man and therefore stopped coaching him. As retribution, the payment that he had been promised for his efforts was withheld. Master Aziz also ran coaching camps for the BCCP where a large number of budding cricket stars benefited from his teaching methods.

When Master Aziz migrated to Pakistan in 1947, he left behind his wife and children in Nawanagar. This included his eldest son Salim Durrani for whose birth Aziz had especially travelled back to the family home in Kabul. Aziz wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and play cricket seriously. As another innovative technique he started passing a shining new cricket ball in front of his baby son’s eyes to get him used to the moving ball and announced that he had become the father of a test cricketer. Hanif’s elder brother Wazir recalls that he first saw Abdul Aziz when his school was playing a match in Nawanagar before partition. He recalls Aziz giving a seven year old Salim some slip catching practice. His method was again most unusual. He had placed cushions on both sides of Salim and was throwing balls on either side, asking him to dive and catch them. The cushions were placed to prevent him from getting hurt when he dived.

Salim Durrani became the first Afghan born cricketer to play test cricket. He went on to play 29 Tests for India as a successful left handed all rounder who was renowned for hitting sixes and could turn a match with either bat or ball. Interestingly, Salim was originally a right handed player, but by making him bat while tying his right hand behind him, Master Aziz converted him into a lefthander as it improved his prospects for playing test cricket. This was a tactic the Mohammad brothers later used on Sadiq to achieve a similar result.

In his final days an ailing Master Aziz was financially supported by the famous commentator Omar Kureishi who met his hospital expenses. This great man died lonely and unsung in 1979.

Dr Salman Faridi is a senior surgeon, poet, sports aficionado and an avid reader with a private collection of over 7000 books. salmanfaridilnh@hotmail.com