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Jahangir Khan (cricketer)

Overview

Mohammad Jahangir Khan (1910–1988) was a cricketer who played Test cricket for India in the 1930s. A right-arm fast-medium bowler and lower-order batsman, he was among the early generation of Indian Test cricketers and represented the country during its formative years in international cricket. He went on to have a long association with cricket administration and coaching in the subcontinent after the partition of India.

Key facts

Full name Mohammad Jahangir Khan
Born 1910
Died 1988
Role Right-arm fast-medium bowler; right-handed batsman
National side India (Test)
First-class teams Cambridge University; Northern India; Muslims (Bombay Quadrangular/Pentangular)
Era 1930s

Background

Jahangir Khan was educated at Cambridge University, where he won a Blue for cricket and played in the University matches against Oxford. His time in English university cricket gave him exposure to first-class competition at a high standard before he was selected for India.

Career

Test cricket

Jahangir Khan was part of the Indian Test side during the 1930s, the decade in which India had only recently been admitted to Test status (1932). He toured England with the Indian team and featured in Tests against England, contributing as both a new-ball bowler and a useful lower-order batsman.

Domestic cricket

In Indian domestic cricket, he represented Northern India in the Ranji Trophy and turned out for the Muslims in the Bombay Quadrangular and Pentangular tournaments, which were the leading communal first-class competitions in pre-independence India.

After 1947

Following the partition of India in 1947, Jahangir Khan settled in Pakistan, where he remained closely associated with the game as an administrator and selector. He was a long-standing figure in Pakistani cricket institutions in the decades that followed.

Family

Jahangir Khan was the father of Majid Khan, the noted batsman who captained Pakistan, and was related through family ties to several other cricketers, including Imran Khan and Javed Burki, making the family one of the most prominent cricketing dynasties of the subcontinent.

Significance

As one of the early Indian Test cricketers, Jahangir Khan represents the bridge between the colonial-era cricket of the Quadrangular tournaments and the establishment of Test cricket as the country's premier form of the game. His later contribution to cricket administration, together with the achievements of his descendants, gives him a lasting place in the cricket history of both India and Pakistan.

References