Khalid Wazir, who played two Tests for Pakistan in 1954, died at age 84 in Chester on Saturday. He was ill for a long time.
A right-hand batsman and medium-pace bowler, Wazir was the 16th Test cricketer for Pakistan and the second-youngest for his country at the time of his debut against England at Lord’s.
He was the son of Wazir Ali, who – and his brother Nazir Ali – played Test cricket for India in the 1930s. After the partition of the country, the Wazir family moved from Jalandhar to Karachi.
Khalid was known as a hard-hitting batsman when he was picked for Pakistan in the touring party to England with only two first-class games under his belt.
The tour didn’t go well for him. He played the first and third Tests of the four-match series but managed only 14 runs in three innings and didn’t bowl. That was to be his only international assignment, and he rounded off the tour with 16 first-class games, scoring 253 runs, including one half-century, at 16.86 and taking nine wickets at 62.66. He never returned to play first-class cricket thereafter.