Wisden overview
Miandad was the greatest Test run-scorer and scrapper Pakistan has ever produced. His street-fighting qualities indeed almost led to a fight with Dennis Lillee at Perth in 1983-84, when Miandad raised his bat to strike in anger. Normally he used it like a maestro to work the ball into space or play big shots, and there was a touch of genie or genius about his finest innings, like his two hundreds in successive Tests in the West Indies in 1987-88. As a captain he was too abrasive to get on with all of his players. As Pakistan's coach, too, he had his ups and downs. But nobody can touch his record of being the only cricketer to play in the first six World Cups, starting as a legspinning allrounder in 1975 when he had just turned 18. Scyld Berry

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