Multan regains Test Status

Pakistan and Bangladesh are scheduled to play the inaugural match of the second Asian Test Championship at Multan from August 29, 2001. Ironically, after staging the first test match way back in 1980-81 the historical city Multan was ignored as a test venue until now.

Multan has staged 12 International matches to date including a Test match and 6 ODIs. However, Pakistan's record at this venue is not impressive, the only test match played so far ended drawn and out of the ODIs they won two and lost four.

Presented below is a brief review of previous International matches played at Multan.

Donald Carr's strong MCC 'A' team won the match against combined Railways and Baluchistan team by an innings and 23 runs. Tony Lock claimed nine wickets including second hat-trick of the tour.

Pakistan won the first match of the unofficial test series against Commonwealth Team by 105 runs with 35 minutes to spare on the last day. Mohammad Ilyas hammered superb 149 runs for Pakistan. Mushtaq Mohammad chiefly contributed with 104 for the visitors. Setting a target of 237 in three and a quarter hours, spinners Intikhab Alam (5/44) and Zulfiqar (5/49) bowled Pakistan to a convincing victory.

Nasir Valika (114) and Qasim Umar (66) were principal scorers for Pakistan Under-19. Duleep Mendis (100) and skipper Anura Teenekoon (68) helped Sri Lanka to amass 431 for 5 declared in a drawn match. Kaluperuma claimed five wickets (5/59).

Despite teen ager Amin Lakhani's hat-trick in each innings, a rare feat (only the fifth bowler to do so in first class cricket) Bishen Singh Bedi's visiting Indian team won the low scoring match by 2 wickets Surinder Amarnath scored 72 and Sunil Gavasakar made 65.

Allan Border scored 178 on the final day to save the tourists from an embarrassing defeat. Australian's scored 213 & 302. Governors XI replied with 323 (Azhar Khan 100) and 88 for one. Match drawn.

On December 30, 1980 Multan became Pakistan's sixth Test venue. This rain hit yet historic drawn match is more remembered for the unfortunate incident of brick hurling into the crowd by late West Indies fast bowler Sylvester Clarke. He reacted to oranges being pelted at him while fielding at the boundary. Helped by a tremendous 120 not out by Vivian Richards, the visitors scored 249 in the first innings. Imran Khan claimed 5 for 62. A fighting 57 by skipper Javed Miandad enabled Pakistan to reply with a score of 166. Four quick wickets fell (84/1 to 85/5) for just one run in the visitor's second innings that gave the home team an outside chance of victory to square the series in this fourth and final test match. However, rain and wet wicket prevented any possibility of play on most of the fourth and entire fifth day. Joel Garner claimed his 100th Test wicket in this Test.

Allan Border and Geoff Lawson claimed five wickets each in BCCP XI's first innings. G.Wood (52), Kim Hughes (50), G. Richie (59), Zahid (64) and Taslim Arif (51) all scored fifties. Match ended drawn.

Zaheer Abbas won the man of the match award after scoring 118 in Pakistna's total of 263 for 2. Mohsin Khan (117 no) also scored a century. India replied with 226 for 7 (B. Patel 84). Jalaluddin, Zaheer Abbass, and Mudassar Nazar all claimed two wickets each and Pakistan won by 57 runs.

Pakistan, after scoring 168 for 9 in 40 overs won the low scoring match by 31 runs after the West Indies failed to achieve the target and scored 137 for 7 in 40 overs. Imran Khan scored 46 not out and won the man of the match award. Courtney Walsh claimed 3/28, Ian Bishop took 2/35, Mushtaq Ahmed took 3/31 and Waqar Younis took 2/19.

Despite Inzamam-ul-Haq's brilliant 101 to bring Pakistan to a modest total of 205 for 5 in 40 overs, Sri Lanka clinched the match by 4 wickets with 2 balls to spare.

Pakistan's score of 200 for 8 in 50 overs was not good enough to stop the Australians from a thumping seven wicket victory in 46 overs. MoM award winner David Boon scored 84 not out. Inzamam-ul-Haq (59) scored another fifty in his hometown.

1955-56 To Date

	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Tie
Test Match	1	0	0	1	-
Unofficial Test Match	1	1	0	0	-
One-Day Internationals	6	2	4	0	0
First Class Matches	4	0	2	2	-
Total	12	3	6	3	-