A total of hundred and one grounds have hosted cricket Test matches. In Pakistan twenty two venues have staged Test cricket and six of them have been the site of a solitary Test only. The first home series to be played in Pakistan was against India in 1955. The first Test of this five match series was played at Dhaka which is now part of Bangladesh. The second Test was played at the Dring Stadium in Bahawalpur and this constitutes the first Test to be played on present Pakistani soil.

Sadly this remains the only Test to be played at the Dring stadium. The stadium was named after Sir John Dring who was the second Prime Minister/Chief Minister of Bahawalpur and an ardent cricket lover. The Nawab of Bahawalpur, Nawab Sadiq Mohammad Khan Abbasi was also a cricket fanatic and fully supported the idea of constructing a modern stadium in his state. It was the first complete stadium of Pakistan, with grounds for cricket, hockey and football, as well as squash courts, a volleyball court, tennis courts, a gym and swimming pools.

Built in the early 1950’s, it offered one of only three turf wickets in Pakistan at the time. The initial first-class match played on it was in November 1951 between the visiting MCC side against a combined Bahawalpur and Karachi team. The match was drawn but it marked the arrival of a batting prodigy called Hanif Mohammad who scored his first fifty in first-class cricket in only his second first-class match. Interestingly it was also Hanif’s first exposure to a turf wicket in first-class cricket.

The Dring Stadium also staged the opening match of the newly inaugurated Quaid e Azam Trophy in 1953-54. In a match played between Bahawalpur and Sind, Hanif again showed his special affinity for this venue. Opening the batting for Bahawalpur, he carried his bat through the innings, remaining unbeaten on 147 in a total score of 252. His knock was instrumental in Bahawalpur’s victory in this inaugural match. Future Test players Wallis Mathias and Mohammad Munaf both made their first-class debuts in this match. Another interesting debutant was the Pir of Pagaro who played his only first-class match in this game and captained the Sind side.

The next first-class match at the Dring Stadium was a Test match between Pakistan and India in January 1955. The first Test at Dhaka had been drawn and the four day second Test from 15-18th January became the first Test to be played on a ground in what constitutes present day Pakistan.

India were bowled out for 235 after having been 107 for 7 wickets at one stage. They were rescued by a fighting innings of 54 not out by their wicket-keeper Narendra Tamhane, who featured in a 78 run stand with Gulabrai Ramchand, who also scored a fifty. For Pakistan Khan Mohammad took 5 wickets for 94 runs from 33 overs, followed by Fazal who took 4 for 86 in a marathon bowling stint of 52.5 overs.

Pakistan began its reply with a first wicket partnership of 127 runs between Hanif and Alimuddin. This was the first opening wicket century stand for Pakistan in Test cricket and was also the highest partnership of this Test. A 73 run stand for the second wicket took Pakistan to 200, before Waqar fell for 48. Hanif continued to apply himself with his legendary concentration and reached his first hundred in Test cricket after a stay of more than seven and a half hours at the crease. He was eventually the 9th batsman to be dismissed with an individual score of 142 and the Pakistani total on 307.

Shortly afterwards Kardar declared the Pakistan innings at 312 for 9. Polly Umrigar took 6 wickets for 74 runs and achieved the best test bowling figures of this game. In the remaining 89 overs India crawled to a score of 209 for 5 wickets, thus leaving the Test match drawn.

Unfortunately, the Dring Stadium was never chosen as the venue for another Test match, a fate that also befell another ground that was selected for a Test match in this series. This was the Peshawar Club ground, which also staged just a solitary Test and has been replaced by the Arbab Niaz Stadium for Test cricket matches.

The Dring Stadium continued to host international teams for side matches, till the mid 1980’s. It also been a regular venue for domestic cricket tournaments. Matches of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy as well as the BCCP Patron’s trophy have been regularly held at this stadium. In this process it has had the honour of staging both the semi-finals as well as the final of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.

Dring Stadium also served as the official training camp for the Pakistan team before their tour of England in 1954. It was also designated as the training camp for Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies in 1957-58. However, on this occasion the Pakistani captain Abdul Hafeez Kardar complained. The Dring Stadium wicket was a slow turner and the ball kept low, which was totally different from the fast and bouncy wickets of the Caribbean. Kardar felt that his batsmen would not receive adequate preparation for the task that lay ahead, while the spin bowlers may develop an exaggerated opinion of their abilities. The Board eventually heeded his advice and shifted the camp to Lahore.

The Dring Stadium has since been renamed as the Bahawal Stadium. Located across the road from the Bahawalpur zoo, with a seating capacity of 15,000 people, it’s stadium complex is one the biggest in Asia in terms of size.

The Dring Stadium has also staged a solitary Under-19 Test match. Played in 1989, this too, was between Pakistan and India and ended in a draw. Pakistan were led by a future test player Basit Ali and the side included the leg spinner Mushtaq who took 6 wickets in India’s only innings.

A total of 164 first-class matches and 28 List A matches have been played at the Dring/ Bahawal Stadium. Out of the 164 matches, 116 have been of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy tournament. Some of the first-class cricket records on this ground make interesting reading

The highest team total on this ground is 720 by the Income Tax Department versus Bahawalpur in 1976-77 in the BCCP Patron’s trophy, while five other innings totals of over 500 have been recorded over the years. On six occasions a team has failed to reach an innings score of even 50. The lowest recorded score is 35 by Zone A versus United Bank Limited in a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match in 1986-87.

The highest score by a batsman on this ground is 277 by Saadat Ali for Income Tax Department against Bahawalpur in 1976-77. Saadat Ali has scored two of the five double centuries made on this venue. The highest recorded partnership at this stadium is a third wicket stand of 288 between Tariq Aziz and Hassan Adnan for WAPDA against Bahawalpur in 1999-2000, in a Quaid Trophy match.

The best bowling in a first-class match on this ground is 9 wickets for 54 runs by Murtaza Husain for Bahawalpur versus Islamabad in 1995-96, closely followed by the Pakistani Test all rounder Israr Ali’s haul of 9 wickets for 58 runs for Bahawalpur against Punjab A in 1957-58. Both these hauls were made in Quaid Trophy matches.

The two highest wicket tallies by a bowler in a match at the Dring Stadium were also in the Quaid Trophy. The lanky Pakistani test off spinner Arshad Khan took 15 wickets for 111 runs for Allied Bank Limited against Bahawalpur in 2002-03 and the St. Patrick’s educated Karachi leg spinner, Iqbal Sikander, who played for the national team in ODIs, grabbed 14 wickets for 94 runs while playing for Karachi Whites versus Bahawalpur in 1991-92.

As far as wicket-keeping records on this stadium go, on eleven occasions keepers have made 5 dismissals in an innings. The record for the highest number of dismissals in a match is held by Azhar Abbas with 10, as he snared 5 victims in each innings while representing Lahore Greens against the home side of Bahawalpur in 1983-84 in a BCCP Patron’s Trophy match.

Navid Yasin has been the most successful fielder in any match at the Dring/Bahawal Stadium, with 5 catches in an innings and a total of 8 in the match for the State Bank of Pakistan while playing Bahawalpur Stags in 2014-15 in yet another Quaid Trophy encounter. Incidentally Navid also scored 173 runs in his team’s only innings in this match.

In the early years of Pakistan’s cricket history, Bahawalpur played a major role in its development. Though the Dring Stadium was originally named after Sir John Dring, it was in fact his political successor and another eminent personality of Bahawalpur, Makhdoomzada Hassan Mahmood, who personally oversaw the construction of the stadium and who recruited a Bahawalpur state team that included the best cricketers of the country including Hanif and Wazir Mohammad, Khan Mohammad, Zulfiqar Ahmed, Imtiaz Ahmed, Alimuddin and Amir Elahi.

He persuaded the Nawab to allocate funds to build a model stadium that was way ahead of its time in concept and structure. Let us hope that suitable renovation is now carried out to restore this splendid facility to its former status as a prime cricketing and sporting venue of the country.

– 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