24th October was a memorable day for the famous Mohammad brothers of Pakistan in multiple Occasions.
Let’s focus on 1969. On 24th October the first Test between Pakistan and New Zealand started at Karachi. It was the last Test match of the ‘Little Master’ Hanif Mohammad and he opened the batting with Sadiq Mohammad, his brother. Thus Hanif and Sadiq became only the second pair of brothers to open in a Test match. The first such instance came long back in 1880 at the Oval. The brothers in question that time was the famous WG Grace and his brother EM Grace.
It was a competitive match. Pakistan did not start well. Hanif was out for 22. Although Sadiq top-scored with 69 he did not get much support from the rest and Pakistan was folded for 220. New Zealand posted 274 in their first innings despite seven wickets from the debutant Mohammad Nazir. Pakistan batted well in the second innings to post 283/8 before declaring and the Test match ended in a draw as New Zealand reached 112/5 in the fourth innings.
Two Mohammad brothers were again on news on the same day in 1976. The opponent was again the Kiwis but the venue was Hyderabad in Sind for the second Test match of the series. Sadiq Mohammad was the opener in this Test match also. The other Mohammad in the team was the captain Mushtaq Mohammad. Pakistan posted a strong batting performance to reach
473/8. Their two top scorers were Sadiq Mohammad with 103 and Mushtaq Mohammad with 101. Hence they also became only the second pair of brothers to score Test centuries in the same innings. In this case, the record was earlier achieved by Ian and Greg Chappell of Australia.
This time Pakistan got an easy win. New Zealand was all out for just 219 in their first innings as Sarfaraz Nawaz and Imran Khan took three wickets each. Javed Miandad took two wickets with his leg-spin. In their second essay, New Zealand posted just 254 following on. Intikhab Alam took four wickets and Miandad chipped in with three more.
With a target of one-run, Sarfaraz Nawaz came out to bat with Wasim Bari and hit the fifth ball of the first over to boundary to record the victory.
