Men are remembered for the legacies they go away behind, their ‘footprints within the sands of time.” The histories of Pakistan’s two most famous cricket stadia, The Nationwide Stadium in Karachi and the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore are indelibly interwoven with two distinctive people, every a grasp of his personal craft and calling.
Kafiluddin Ahmed
Kafiluddin Ahmed was born on November 13, 1913 in Mymensingh, East Bengal (British India). He graduated as a Civil Engineer from Calcutta College in 1937. He was an energetic sportsman in his scholar days, representing his alma mater in cricket, hockey, soccer and badminton. He subsequently certified for the celebrated Indian Engineering Service (IES) and through the struggle years was posted in Bushehr in Iran in addition to in Bahrain. Whereas at Bushehr he performed each cricket and hockey for the British Consulate towards the British and Indian Navy groups.
After the creation of Pakistan he was assigned for 3 years to Dhaka as an Govt Engineer of the Pakistan Public Works Division (Pak PWD). Whereas there, he was instrumental in establishing the Establishment of Engineers of Pakistan (IEP) and served as its first secretary. He was additionally the founder secretary of the Dhaka flying membership.
In 1950 Kafiluddin was posted to Karachi because the Superintending Engineer, Administration Circle, Pakistan PWD, with accountability for the event of the-then federal capital of Pakistan. It was right here that he started a love affair with the sport of cricket that may turn out to be a significant aspect of his life.
He quickly started to patronize the sport in a significant means. His formally allotted authorities lodging was one of many massive bungalows on what was then known as Bunder Highway (now MA Jinnah Highway). It had a really spacious compound the place Kafiluddin was in a position to arrange correct coated apply nets which have been frequented by all of the main Karachi primarily based gamers of the day, together with Hanif Mohammad, Wazir Mohammad, Waqar Hasan, Alimuddin and Ikram Elahi. He additionally established a PWD cricket staff, and appointed the Take a look at umpire Idrees Baig, because the sports activities officer chargeable for managing it. Jobs have been supplied to many gamers to supply them monetary safety in order that they might focus completely on sharpening their cricket abilities. One such beneficiary was a 17-year-old Hanif Mohammad, who was appointed as a highway inspector in 1951, a job which assured him an inexpensive month-to-month revenue with out placing in even a day’s work on the job. One other was Waqar Hasan, who was persuaded to maneuver from Lahore to Karachi, and appointed as a cinema inspector within the PWD, a teasingly fascinating appointment as Waqar’s brother Iqbal Shahzad, was a movie producer.
Kafiluddin additionally served because the Vice President of the Karachi Cricket Affiliation and the Treasurer of the BCCP (Board for Management of Cricket in Pakistan). In late 1954, plans have been introduced for an inaugural three month go to by the Indian cricket staff, starting in December that yr, for a 5 Take a look at collection towards Pakistan. There was nice enthusiasm within the public about this tour and enormous crowds have been anticipated to look at the matches between these two arch rivals.
The fifth and closing Take a look at of the collection was scheduled to be performed at Karachi from 26th February to 1st March. Karachi was the capital of the nation however its solely cheap cricket floor was the one on the Karachi Gymkhana which sadly had very restricted seating capability for the followers. In November 1954 an pressing assembly was organized on the workplace cum residence of Mr. AT Naqvi, the Chief Commissioner of Karachi to look into methods of addressing this drawback.
Because the honorary treasurer of the BCCP, Kafiluddin Ahmed additionally attended this assembly. He proposed a radical answer by providing the PWD’s companies to construct a brand new cricketing facility within the metropolis within the quick interval of barely three months that remained earlier than the beginning of the Karachi Take a look at. After a lot persuasion he received the Commissioner’s approval. The PWD was offered a plot of land measuring 174.5 acres on the Dalmia Cement Manufacturing unit Highway, for a grand Nationwide Stadium undertaking, of which the cricket floor can be the preliminary development. Your complete undertaking additionally envisaged hockey and soccer grounds, 13 tennis courts, apply grounds, an Olympic stadium, a membership home and residential amenities. Its accredited price range was Rs 14.6 million.
The cricket stadium needed to be constructed rapidly at fast pace. In actual fact such was Kafiluddin’s sense of urgency that his son Hyderuddin, who had accompanied his father to the Commissioner’s home, recalled “as soon as Abbu acquired Mr Naqvi’s nod to go forward, he took my hand and whisked us out of the Chief Commissioner’s workplace, not even ready for the sharbat (chilly drink) that was on provide.”
The identical night he started making cellphone calls to get the undertaking underway. The development contract was awarded to Gammon Pakistan Ltd. and Sheikh Gulzar Ali and work quickly started at a feverish tempo with over 2000 folks engaged every day. Kafiluddin carried out a day by day inspection go to to the location, and with assist from the officers of the PWD, this monumental job was accomplished in simply over three months, at a value of Rs. 2.2 million. This was a exceptional achievement, defying all odds, and displays the dynamism and drive of Kafiluddin who was suitably described by Omar Kureishi as a pocket dynamo.
The Pakistan-India Take a look at was the primary cricket match to be performed on the newly constructed stadium and proved to be an ideal public success, attracting a full home, with the frenzy of individuals and automobiles inflicting visitors jams all the best way to the Jail Highway. The match was quickly interrupted by rain on the third day and ultimately led to a draw, however earlier than that occurred it was graced on its second day by a go to from the Turkish President, Celal Bayar, who was on a state go to to Pakistan. He was the primary, and to this date, the one Turkish President ever to witness a Take a look at match. Whereas the go to of the US President to a Take a look at match on the NSK in 1959, continues to obtain a lot point out, sadly the Turkish President’s go to is one which has receded from public reminiscence.
All through the 1950s and 60s, Kafiluddin continued to widen the web of his sponsorship of cricket in Karachi . He started organising summer season camps on the NSK for gifted college, school and college cricketers and beneficiaries of this scheme included gamers like Naseem ul Ghani and Haseeb Ahsan. Mushtaq Mohammad was additionally inducted into the PWD on Hanif’s advice. Since he was below age on the time, he couldn’t be formally employed and a means spherical this bottleneck was discovered by providing him a scholarship. Within the column that needed to outline his operate within the organisation, he was proven as a cement clerk. Due to this fact, as Mushtaq information in his autobiography, he was formally documented as “Mushtaq Mohammad, cement clerk, on scholarship”, certainly a primary for the books.
In 1963, Kafiluddin was transferred to Dhaka to assist construct Pakistan’s second capital, and shortly started to make efforts to advertise cricket there. Though the primary Pak PWD staff stayed behind in Karachi, he invited some skilled Karachi gamers to Dhaka to assist him on this job. These included Nasim ul Ghani, Rehman Ali, Masood ul Hasan and Mufassir ul Haque, all of whom he managed to have inducted into the East Pakistan contingent. The six month keep of those cricketers in Dhaka helped in creating native expertise like Niaz Ahmed, Abdul Latif and Daulat Zaman, and in enabling the East Pakistan staff to defeat a superb Karachi Whites facet, led by Saeed Ahmed, within the Quaid e Azam trophy.
Kafiluddin continued to recruit extra gamers into the PWD facet. A few of the extra distinguished names included Saeed Ahmed, Intikhab Alam and Zaheer Abbas. When Bangladesh got here into being, Kafiluddin opted to remain again in Karachi, residing in his home in Nazimabad. A eager sportsman to the top, it’s maybe befitting that he parted from this world on a sports activities floor. On 28th November 1985, after enjoying two units of tennis, he suffered a deadly coronary heart assault whereas nonetheless on the tennis court docket.
Kafiluddin Ahmed’s contribution to the event of cricket in Pakistan in its early youth is large. The Nationwide Stadium that he constructed within the document time of three months, lives on as a testomony to his imaginative and prescient and as a permanent witness of his dedication to a trigger and to his nation.
Nasreddin Murat Khan
The Gaddafi stadium was designed and constructed by a famend architect of his time, Nasreddin Murat Khan who is best recognized for designing the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore.
Murat Khan was born in Dagestan in Russia in 1904, in a Muslim Caucasian household. His father was a soldier within the Imperial Russian military. In 1930 Murat graduated with triple levels in Structure, Civil Engineering and City Planning from the Leningrad State College (now generally known as the St.Petersburg State College). He subsequently held quite a lot of posts in his house state of Dagestan, and was concerned in main initiatives like constructing a Polytechnic Institute and a 600 bedded hospital in Makhachkala, the capital metropolis of Dagestan, and the Nationwide Theatre in Derbent, the state’s second largest metropolis.
Murat and his household have been energetic supporters of the motion to free Caucasian territories from Soviet management and he was arrested throughout Stalin’s “Engineer Purges”, however was reinstated in February 1940, as Chief Engineer and Chief Architect of the North Caucasian Challenge Belief. His household, nonetheless, was nonetheless blacklisted. His brother was despatched to Siberia, and fearing for her life, his sister emigrated to Iran. Murat additionally determined to flee from Dagestan in 1944, accompanying the retreating German military, and abandoning a thriving profession in Russia, to dwell as a refugee in a camp run by the United Nations Reduction and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), in Berlin.
On the camp, Murat labored as an engineer and architect and was additionally the Deputy Chief of the Central Technical Workplace. It was right here that he met and married Hamida Akmut, one other refugee on the camp. Hamida herself had an fascinating multi-cultural background. Her father was from Lahore, whereas her mom was Austrian-Hungarian. Her dad and mom had settled in Turkey a couple of years after their marriage and had acquired Turkish citizenship. Hamida had been learning medication in Vienna however her coaching was disrupted by the struggle and she or he ultimately certified as a nurse as an alternative.
After the creation of Pakistan, Hamida’s father Dr, Abdul Hafiz Malwada, who had a doctorate diploma in chemical engineering from Germany and was an knowledgeable in weapons know-how, was lured again to Pakistan by his brother Mian Abdul Aziz, who had served because the mayor of Lahore for a number of years. On returning to Pakistan, Dr. Hafiz performed a key position in organising the Wah Ordinance Manufacturing unit. In 1950 he invited his son-in-law Murat Khan to hitch him in Pakistan, and settle on this new homeland for the Muslims.
Murad accepted his father-in-law’s invitation, and after arriving in Pakistan, started work as a Garrison Engineer within the Army Engineering Service (MES), earlier than transferring to the Public Works Division (PWD), the place he labored each as an govt engineer in addition to a particular architect. In 1959, he gave up his authorities job and established his personal architectural agency, Illeri N. Murat Khan and Associates within the annexe of his stunning house on Montgomery Highway in Lahore.
Amongst the essential buildings that he designed and constructed, are the 1,000 bedded Nishtar Hospital in Multan, a 500 bedded psychological hospital in Mansehra, Divisional Public Excessive Colleges in Lahore and Faisalabad, the Sinclair Corridor auditorium within the Forman Christian Faculty of Lahore, with a seating capability of over 700, municipal workplaces in Multan, the Sahala Police Coaching Faculty, a Textile Faculty in Faisalabad, the Jamia mosque in Mirpur, a library and a women park in Rahim Yar Khan, the Financial institution of America in Lahore, a procuring centre in Peshawar, a mosque within the Punjab Governor’s home in Lahore, in addition to many residences and townships.
Murat was additionally the architect who designed the Fortress Stadium and the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. The development contractors he employed for the Gaddafi Stadium have been Mian Abdul Khaliq and Firm, and the undertaking was accomplished in 1959.
It was initially named the Lahore Olympic Stadium (later shortened to simply the Lahore Stadium), and was meant to be a multi-purpose enviornment. It even had a tunnel for athletes via which they might run into the bottom, however this was later taken out. Along with cricket, it additionally hosted wrestling tournaments and hockey matches. The primary Take a look at match at this stadium was performed towards the visiting Australian facet in 1959, which Pakistan misplaced by 7 wickets with simply 12 minutes of play remaining. By the way, this was additionally the primary first-class cricket match to be performed at this venue.
In 1974, the stadium was re-named because the Gaddafi Stadium, to honour the Libyan chief, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who, throughout his go to to the Organisation of Islamic International locations summit held in Lahore in 1974, addressed a big public gathering on the floor in assist of Pakistan.
Murat Khan’s greatest reward to the nation, nonetheless, is the Minar-e-Pakistan. On 23rd March 1940, the well-known Lahore decision was handed at Minto Park in Lahore, calling for the institution of separate Muslim states within the Indian subcontinent. Nineteen years in a while 23rd March 1959, the Lahore Municipal Company handed a decision to construct a monument to commemorate this momentous occasion. A 22 member committee was shaped for this function of which Murat Khan was additionally a member. Designs for the monument have been invited via a public competitors, however when many proposals have been rejected as being unsuitable, Murat Khan volunteered to design the monument and the encircling nationwide park himself, and likewise took accountability for supervising its development. He offered all these companies freed from cost, saying that this was his contribution to the nation that gave him a brand new house. Development of the Minar started in 1960 and was accomplished eight years later in 1968. Murat was awarded the Tamgha e Imtiaz in 1963 for his efforts.
Murat’s unique design had an open high, signifying the nation’s countless, infinite capability for development, however the committee subsequently needed it capped with a dome to make it extra Islamic in look. When Murat refused to offer in, he was unceremoniously faraway from the committee a couple of months earlier than the minar’s completion and was not even invited to the inaugural ceremony of a construction that he had personally designed and constructed via eight years of sustained effort and love. Such is the callous means by which we deal with our heroes .
Murat was heartbroken by this expertise. A yr later he had an surprising coronary heart assault and handed away. Sadly, only a few folks keep in mind the half performed by this gifted architect and engineer in constructing among the most treasured monuments and buildings of the early years of our nationhood. As a citizen of a younger and rising state, Murat Khan had accepted greater than his justifiable share of accountability in contributing to its development, working with nice dignity and distinction, forsaking an enduring legacy via the buildings he helped to design and assemble.
It’s ironic that the boys behind Pakistan’s two most well-known and widespread cricket stadia each occurred to be born in lands that aren’t a part of current day Pakistan. What they shared was a dream to assist construct a brand new nation and lift it to a worthy standing within the comity of countries. They did so with ardour and delight, devoting the very best years of their lives to constructing buildings of eternal reputation and stature. We, as a nation, owe them an everlasting debt of gratitude.
– Dr Salman Faridi is a senior surgeon, poet, sports activities aficionado and an avid reader with a personal assortment of over 7000 books.