First-Class Matches Pakistan 1975/76 to 1979/80

Pakistan in 1977/78 In common with the rest of the cricketing world in 1977, Pakistan was rocked by the Packer Affair. The lure of the Australian media tycoon’s rival cricketing ‘circus’ proved irresistible, with few exceptions, even for the relatively well-heeled cricketers of England and Australia; it was hardly surprising if cricketers from Pakistan also succumbed. Asif Iqbal, Imran Khan, Majid Khan and Mushtaq Mohammad all signed up and were duly banned by the Pakistan Board. Pakistan’s Test engagements in 1977/78 and 1978 were all against England: three Tests at home in December and January and three away in June and July. Both sides were affected by roughly equal numbers of defections to Packer, although England were arguably less handicapped because of their greater strength in depth. But aided by home advantage, Pakistan held their own as the first rubber resulted in three evenly-contested draws in which, to be frank, a positive result never seemed more than a very remote possibility. In the second rubber, however, the unfamiliar conditions of the first half of an English summer were too much for the inexperienced Pakistan team and they were routed: England achieved easy innings wins in the first two Tests before the third was ruined by rain. In the domestic season, the process continued of reducing the number of first-class tournaments. The Pentangular Trophy and Bhutto Cup both disappeared from the programme, but a new competition, the BCCP Invitation Tournament, was instituted. The Quaid-e-Azam and Patron’s Trophy both continued, so the number of competitions was reduced to three: as usual, played sequentially. Quaid-e-Azam Trophy : The season began with the QeA, played in September and October on the same basis as the previous season: a knockout event with four games scheduled (one of which did not take place) before the quarter-final stage. Habib Bank beat National Bank to claim the Trophy. BCCP Invitation Tournament : The Invitation Tournament, as the Pentangular was renamed this season, took place in Lahore in October and November. The eight invited teams were divided into two leagues of four, with the winners meeting in a final. Habib Bank won Group B by a distance but Group A was very close. Indeed, it was only by virtue of a coin toss that PIA progressed to the final after, according to press reports, finishing level with United Bank on 47 points. However, there seems to be some confusion about this because adding the points received per game gives PIA 48 points as shown in the table below. At any rate, PIA advanced to the final but Habib Bank , aided by twin centuries by their captain Javed Miandad, earned a comfortable win to become the inaugural champions. The 70-over limit on first innings applied in this tournament. BCCP Patron’s Trophy : After an interval in domestic competition to accommodate the England tour, the Patron’s Trophy continued in much the same format as previously except that it now comprised 28 teams instead of 26 (so much for the strictures of the editor of Wisden ). Four teams received byes to the second round: the previous season’s finalists (Habib Bank and National Bank) plus Pakistan Universities and the House Building Finance Corporation. Three scheduled games did not take place: in the first round, Railways and Quetta allowed their opponents (respectively Lahore B and WAPDA) a walkover; and the second round game between WAPDA and Karachi B was recorded as a walkover for the former. However, this was the subject of a dispute with the result that Muslim Commercial Bank, having defeated WAPDA in the quarter-finals, were obliged to play what was, in effect, a second quarter-final against Karachi B (but won this as well when Karachi B conceded part-way through the match). MCB went on to reach the final, only to come up against Habib Bank , by a distance the team of the season, who duly completed a clean sweep of all three available first-class trophies. 133