Pakistan Cricket Chronicles 1948-2024

Martin Chandler | 9:48am GMT 23 November 2025

Published: 2025
Pages: 458
Author: Ahmed, Afzal
Publisher: Private
Rating: 5 stars

Books have been written about cricket memorabilia before, a subject that I have to confess at the outset is very much a favourite of mine, but there has never been anything quite like this.

Most such books have been bibliographies, but there have also been titles on ceramics and art and indeed in 1985 a general volume on the subject of memorabilia was published bearing the Wisden imprint – sadly a new edition has never been published.

Almost without exception those celebrations of the game’s collectables have emerged from England or Australia, but two have now come from Pakistan. Some years ago the late Kim Baloch compiled a bibliography of Pakistan cricket. Like all bibliographies it is a useful tool, but of no interest at all to anyone other than a collector.

Which is exactly what Afzal Ahmed is. A retired banker from Karachi he has been putting together his collection over the whole of his adult life, and has chosen now to share that collection with the rest of us.

The book is a striking achievement. It is a substantial quarto produced to the highest standards and, with more than a thousand illustrations, is primarily a pictorial record, albeit one with an important narrative running through it.

Afzal has chose to tackle his subject chronologically so, starting with the 1948/49 season, there is a chapter for every year up to and including 2023/24. The chapters themselves are all then organised in much the same way. Each one begins with a narrative summary of the events of the season, highlighting the touring sides that visited Pakistan and those from the country that travelled overseas as well as noting other landmarks.

From recording cricket history Afzal moves on to memorabilia. The majority of these items are signed photographs, but there are signature sheets, scorecards and other items as well. Very few of the photographs are familiar.

The highlight of the book however, for this bibliophile anyway, are the images of the covers of the souvenir brochures issued in the year in question, followed by the books..This extends to publications that originate from anywhere in the world, just so long as the subject matter relates to  Pakistan cricket or cricketers.

The brochures are many and varied and, I know, many of the earlier ones are very scarce. Certainly I saw many illustrated that I have never seen copies of available in England. I half expected the same to apply to the books, and am still undecided as to whether the fact that it seems I actually own a copy of almost all of them is a source of pleasure or disappointment. One I certainly don’t have is the four volume history of Pakistan cricket that was written by Nauman Niaz and published in 2007. It must be an extraordinary piece of work and certainly the heaviest book of its kind the entire series of books coming in at the small matter of 4,761 pages.

There is also an excellent foreword. This is written by two Englishmen, Peter Oborne and Richard Heller who themselves have authored two excellent books on Pakistan cricket. Thus the foreword has the sadly unusual advantage of having been written not only by people passionate about the book’s subject but who have also read it. Theirs is a foreword that should certainly be read, and contains a particularly interesting tale about a leading Indian cricket writer that rather brought to my mind the circumstances of the current stand off between the BBC and Donald Trump.

When I first starting writing book reviews for Cricketweb I had the idea in my head, and possibly Archie Mac is responsible for this, that ratings should be objective. Over the years I have increasingly moved away from that position and, with effect from today, intend to abandon it completely. Pakistan Cricket Chronicles 1948-2024 is not going to be of wide appeal, which is a shame, but irrespective of that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and have no doubt but that it will be a book I return to regularly for so long as I retain the serious weakness that I have for the acquisition of cricket books and other related memorabilia. It is available from the author in Pakistan, from David Battersby (dave@talbot.force9.co.uk) in the UK and from Roger Page in Australia.