Inzamam-ul-Haq: “He would call the players’ room, changing his voice, calling players somewhere. That happened with me many times”
Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo
Former Pakistan captain and chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq has revealed that opening batsman Saeed Anwar used to be the wittiest player in the team as he used to prank the players.
Inzamam recalled incidents where Anwar used to prank call players and even the team’s then-manager Haroon Rasheed.
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“I played with many greats like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Javed bhai. All these players are witty and under pressure, they joke around and release pressure from others,” Inzamam said in a YouTube video as quoted by PakPassion. “Saeed bhai was ahead of all the rest. Now he has a beard and he’s a pious man, may Allah bless him but he was the most witty. He would call the players’ room, changing his voice, calling players somewhere. That happened with me many times.
“In Faisalabad, we lost a Test to SA and he was captain. Haroon Rasheed was the manager. In those days, mobiles had just come out so Haroon bhai and Saeed bhai had new phones. In that time, it wouldn’t show caller IDs. Our chairman was Zulfiqar Bukhari. I was sitting with Saeed bhai, he called Haroon Rasheed and (pretended he was the chairman and) told him ‘What are these senior players doing, kick them all out, they don’t score’. Haroon bhai said he was thinking the same. Saeed bhai put the phone off and asked Haroon bhai, what are you saying to the chairman? Haroon bhai was ashamed and said it was [the] chairman so I humoured him.
“Once, Mushtaq and I had to get passports made. A guy had to come and take us for that. He (Saeed bhai) called us at 5am and told us to come down immediately, telling us we have to come down to get our passports done. We looked for him in the whole lobby and couldn’t find him. Then we got another call saying that he was near the coffee shop. We looked for him everywhere but couldn’t find him. Then we came back and saw Saeed bhai.
“He was a great friend too. If anyone needed help, he would help others.”
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