Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

match at Dacca in East Pakistan, the modern Bangladesh, they had confidently expected to find a replacement. But when they arrived, who should be there but Begh? “I asked him, ‘What are you doing here?’” says Donald Carr. “He said, ‘I’m here for the tiger season.’ Anyway, he turned out on the field of play on the first day. And he rather obviously gave us the advantage in a number of appeals.” Help from one of the umpires – there was certainly none from the other – proved in vain as Khan Mohammad and Fazal Mahmood, relishing the matting pitch, took all twenty MCC wickets. The absence of Cowan, in conditions that were tailor-made for a bowler of his pace, was a severe blow to MCC, who lost by an innings and ten runs. It was off the field at Dacca that developments for which the tour is immortalised first began to take shape. A party of high-spirited young men found themselves closeted in a then relatively poor country, predominantly Moslem, still recovering from the problems of Partition. Where there had been an excess of social and civic occasions when Allan toured India, now there were too many evenings with nothing much to do. Water pistols were one of Problems in Pakistan 82 MCC A team in Pakistan. Back row (l to r): Mohammad Sharif, Fred Titmus, Brian Close, Ian Thomson, Roy Swetman, Jim Parks, Peter Sainsbury, Peter Richardson, Ken Barrington, M.Azghar. Front row: Maurice Tompkin, M.H.Khawaja, Zafar Ullah, Tony Lock, Azmal Ullah, Bill Sutcliffe (vice capt), C.G.Howard (Manager), Allan Watkins, Daud Khan (Liaison officer). The MCC captain Donald Carr is absent.