LOST TREASURES

No.6 Shoaib Mohammad

Next in our series unearthing relics from cricket’s past, Rob Bagchi examines the story of an obdurate Pakistani batter who struggled to escape from his father’s shadow despite excelling against the world’s best

Few cricketers would know what it was like to be Shoaib Mohammad. Richard Hutton is one. Sir Michael Parkinson remembered one dimwit saying to Sir Leonard’s son after he had made a matchwinning 30 for Yorkshire at Bradford Park Avenue: “Well done, lad. But tha’ll never be as good as thi dad.” Quite true despite its blunt pettiness, yet as Parky pointed out: “Who will ever be as good as his dad?”

The first obstacle to overcome when born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth is not to choke on it, and Shoaib succeeded unfussily in that. But when you’re the son of one of the most significant of cricketers – and Hanif Mohammad, as the builder of austere, serious, monumental and, above all, long innings, was Pakistan’s Hutton – comparisons will be as unfavourable as they are inevitable. Add in that Shoaib’s uncles Wazir, Mushtaq and Sadiq played 118 Tests between them and the impossible standards he would be judged by were not just filial but dynastic as well.