Test cricket boasts several celebrated pairs of brothers, from Australia’s Mark and Steve Waugh to South Africa’s Graeme and Peter Pollock. The Graces even managed three with WG, EM and Fred playing for England as did the Chappell family, with Ian, Greg and Trevor representing Australia.
Yet no cricketing family has ever rivalled the quartet of Wazir Mohammad and his three brothers, all of whom played for Pakistan, notching up 173 Test appearances between them. They might have been a quintet too but Raees Mohammad — the second of the five brothers and rated by Wazir as the most stylish — had to make do with being the 12th man against India in 1955.
The oldest of the five, Wazir was a resolute middle-order batsman who made his debut in the third Test of Pakistan’s inaugural series against India in 1952, making him the 14th player to be capped by his country.
He went on to appear in 20 Tests, including Pakistan’s first victory against England at the Oval in 1954, and against the West Indies at Port of Spain, Trinidad, four years later when he batted for almost seven hours in making his highest score of 189.
His innings helped Pakistan to record their first victory over West Indies and for once he outshone his younger brother Hanif Mohammad, who made 54.
For most of his career, though, he lived in Hanif’s shadow after his younger brother — nicknamed “the Little Master” — made a score of 337 in the same series and the following year, while playing for Karachi, made 499, the highest score in first-class cricket until overtaken by Brian Lara for Warwickshire in 1994.
Wazir spent part of both of these epic innings batting at the other end, the junior partner but sharing century stands with his brother on both occasions. “I was often introduced as Hanif’s elder brother,” he said. “But I never felt embarrassed. Rather I was proud of him.”
The Pakistan team that toured England on 1954, which featured Wazir, back row on the right, and his brother Hanif, back row on the left
CENTRAL PRESS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Mushtaq Mohammad, the fourth of the brothers, played the first of his 57 Test matches in the same side as Wazir against the West Indies in 1959 although by the time the youngest brother, Sadiq Mohammad, made his Test debut a decade later, Wazir had retired.
While working for the National Bank of Pakistan, his career brought him to Britain, where he settled with his family in Shirley, Warwickshire. His two sons went on to play league cricket while Wazir kept fit into old age by playing badminton three times a week.
His final tally of 801 Test runs at an average of 27.62 was modest enough and his three Test-playing brothers all registered better stats; he could proudly recite them off the top of his head to two decimal points, earning him the nickname “Wisden”. Yet the contribution he made to several of the most significant victories in Pakistan’s early Test cricket history could not be measured in numbers.
He was also better versed in the laws of the game than most, as he proved on Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies in 1958. After Garfield Sobers had posted the then highest Test score of 365 not out in the third Test in Jamaica, supporters rushed on to the field to congratulate him, creating a small crater in the wicket.
As the West Indies declared a massive 462 runs ahead and leaving Pakistan a tricky 90 minutes to bat before the close of play, Wazir told the umpires that the rules stated that wear and tear to the pitch due to unnatural causes meant that play should be suspended.
The umpires initially disagreed, but on reading the laws realised that Wazir was right. Pakistan were spared having to bat through a potentially hazardous final session while the wicket was repaired for the following day’s play.
He was born in 1929, in Junagadh, India. His father, who managed a salt factory and owned a petrol station and a small hotel, was only a modest club cricketer and the hand-eye co-ordination with which Wazir and all his brothers were blessed was inherited from their mother, a champion badminton player.
He learnt to bat by hitting a ball hanging from a tree on a rope but in 1947, partition uprooted the family and they were forced to move to Karachi. The death of his father soon after left him as head of the family.
Forced to take a job, he still found time to play cricket for the local Pak Mughal Club and encouraged his younger brothers to join him. When Pakistan was granted Test status in 1952, both Wazir and Hanif, 17, were named in the squad for a five-Test tour of India. Hanif played in all five games while Wazir had to wait for the third Test to make his debut.
One of his proudest moments came on Pakistan’s first tour of England in 1954. In a low-scoring final Test at the Oval he top-scored with 42 not out as Pakistan for the first time defeated England, who put out a side that included Len Hutton, Denis Compton and Peter May.
During his innings he was hit on the toe by an inswinging yorker from Brian Statham. It hurt but nowhere near as badly as his hopping about and grimacing made out.
After treatment he carried on batting and kept up the pretence that he was in agonising pain. Convinced that he would not be able to move his feet freely, the England bowlers continued to pitch the ball up to him.
It was exactly what he wanted because a deteriorating wicket meant that the shorter deliveries would have offered a far greater threat and his ninth-wicket partnership of 58 with Zulfiqar Ahmed turned the match. Pakistan’s opening bowler Fazal Mahmood did not make the same mistake and exploited the misbehaving pitch, taking six wickets for 46 to win the game by 24 runs.
Two years later, Wazir helped Pakistan to their first victory over Australia in Karachi with an innings of 67 in which he hooked the great Keith Miller with aplomb.
Arguably he left the game too soon, for his finest series came on his final tour in 1958 when he made consecutive Test scores of 106, 7, 97 not out and 189 against West Indies. He played his final Test the following year before losing his place to his 16-year-old brother Mushtaq.
“My Test record might not be as impressive as my brothers,” he said in 2010. “But it gives me great pride that I made vital contributions in Pakistan’s maiden Test victories.”
Wazir Mohammad, cricketer, was born on December 22, 1929. He died on October 13, 2025, aged 95