It changed Pakistan cricket, a large tract of which still operates under the shadow he cast. It changed Imran's career, which meant it changed his life.
Sydney was Pakistan's most seminal win since The Oval in 1954. He took five wickets there, 12 more at Sydney, where he was frightening - fast enough that over the next few years, in golden years for very fast bowling, he would be among the fastest. He would win the World Cup in 1992 but by then the trophy was a vessel, because he was less a cricketer and more… well, what was he not? Twenty-four years old and now pissed off, he resolved to not give a shit in the second innings. Pakistan were in Melbourne and for the first half of the Test there, Imran was bowling English: not very fast, too straight, too meek, too bland. It wasn't until a couple of weeks before Sydney that it happened. It didn't happen straightaway - there were things beyond even his will. To hell with what anyone else thought: he was going to bowl fast. Not for the last time in his life, Pakistan cleared his mind. Cricket in England, though instructional, was utilitarian. He was a cricketer but not much of one, least of all the fast bowler he believed was inside him. It was a moment in his life, he felt, when decisiveness was needed. But the Imran that we know - or the first Imran we recognise - was born at the Sydney Cricket Ground, in a Test against Australia.Ībout a year before that game he had returned to Pakistan after four years in England. He was born in October 1952, in Lahore, though some sources have him as November-born. I mran Khan was born a month after me, in Sydney in January 1977.
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