LAHORE:,,, Saeed Ahmed, the former Pakistan captain and all-rounder, has died here at the age of 86 after a brief illness.
Saeed, who played 41 Tests between 1958 and 1973, captained the side briefly, for three drawn Test matches against England in 1969, replacing Hanif Mohammad. He scored 2,991 Test runs, including five centuries, three of which came against India. A capable offspinner, he also took 22 wickets.
Saeed was born in Jalandhar in 1937 in what was then British India – now a part of Indian Punjab. He made his debut at the age of 20 against the West Indies in the famous drawn Test in Bridgetown, where Hanif Mohammad batted for 970 minutes to score 337 runs. Saeed shared a 154-run partnership with Hanif for the third wicket, scoring 65 as West Indies bowled 319 overs before the game was ultimately called off.
He quickly made a name for his grace and ease, particularly when driving the ball, and demonstrated instantly that he belonged at the highest level. He finished his career with a batting average of 40.01, almost identical to his first-class average of 40.02. He scored his first of five Test hundreds in Georgetown against an attack that included Roy Gilchrist, Lance Gibbs and Garry Sobers, though West Indies won that Test by eight wickets. Pakistan never won a Test he scored a hundred in, though playing in the least prolific period of Pakistan’s Test history may have been a factor.
He made 508 runs in his first Test series, in the Caribbean in 1957-58, and had a taste for big hundreds: three of his five at Test level were of 150 or more.