{"id":1053430,"date":"2026-06-27T12:12:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T12:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1053430\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T12:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T12:12:25","slug":"qamar-ahmed-farewell-to-crickets-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1053430\/","title":{"rendered":"Qamar Ahmed: Farewell To Cricket&#8217;s Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Although the front seat in my car will miss his presence, the echoes he left behind will remain for long.<br \/>K R Nayar mourns legendary cricket writer Qamar Ahmed.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"imgwidth\" title=\"Qamar Ahmed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/21qamar-ahmed.jpg\" alt=\"Qamar Ahmed\" style=\"max-width:100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGE: K R Nayar with Qamar Ahmed, after he received a memento from the Pakistan Cricket Board after he reported his 423rd Test match in Dubai in 2016. Photograph: K R Nayar<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Points<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Veteran cricket journalist Qamar Ahmed passed away at 88, leaving behind decades of reporting legacy across global cricket.<\/li>\n<li>He was known for rich storytelling, including first-class debut anecdotes and historic cricket memories from 1950s onward.<\/li>\n<li>Deeply connected with players like Javed Miandad, he shared personal relationships with multiple generations of cricketers.<\/li>\n<li>He was respected for ethical journalism, prioritising trust, privacy, and integrity over sensational or gossip-driven reporting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"rbig\">Qamar Ahmed: A front-seat storyteller on cricket&#8217;s highway is no more<\/p>\n<p>Almost everyone called him Q, but for me he was Qamar bhai. Pakistan&#8217;s veteran cricket writer and commentator, Qamar Ahmed, who passed away on June 18, 2026, was someone with whom I&#8217;ve travelled a lot.<\/p>\n<p>To be precise, we travelled together whenever he came to Dubai, listening to his many stories.<\/p>\n<p>The first message I received after the passing away of 88-year-old Qamar was from another Pakistan journalist and close friend, Shahid Hashmi.<\/p>\n<p>He wrote: &#8216;The front seat in your car (where Qamar always sat) will remain vacant. Our journey mate during matches in the UAE is no more.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The energy with which Qamar came to report matches always defied his age. Not once did I get the impression that the man seated next to me was in his 80s.<\/p>\n<p>It was the tales he narrated about his first-class debut in 1956 for Sind against Karachi Whites, and how he had dismissed Mushtaq Mohammad, who was also making his debut, that made me think his age.<\/p>\n<p>He was such a brilliant storyteller that I felt I was with a living archive of the game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rbig\">Qamar was close to Javed Miandad and had many stories about his heroics. He had a home in England, and many Pakistan Test stars stayed there with him.<\/p>\n<p>Having reported close to 450 Test matches, he had seen it all and knew more than any other Pakistan cricket journalist.<\/p>\n<p>His little-known tales about cricketers always made me wait for his phone call before a Pakistan series in the UAE.<\/p>\n<p>Qamar was born in Uttar Pradesh in 1937, and once, during a journey to Abu Dhabi, he narrated how his family was protected by an Indian family during the riots prior to Partition.<\/p>\n<p>It was touching to hear his story after he had revisited his home in UP decades later during an India-Pakistan cricket series.<\/p>\n<p>Qamar&#8217;s narration of cricket history was such that it felt like he was holding my hand and I was walking with him down memory lane.<\/p>\n<p>Every time he came to the UAE, or when I met him in England, he would gift me a cricket book, signed with a personal note addressed to me.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"imgwidth\" title=\"Qamar Ahmed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/21qamar-ahmed-1.jpg\" alt=\"Qamar Ahmed\" style=\"max-width:100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGE: Qamar Ahmed used to collect autographs from players on cricket bats, mostly on request from those who read him. Photograph: K R Nayar<\/p>\n<p>Last Message And Milestone<\/p>\n<p class=\"rbig\">Qamar&#8217;s last message to me was on May 31, 2026 congratulating me on my blog crossing the 400,000 readership mark.<\/p>\n<p>We always shared our stories, and he would comment on almost every piece I wrote. I valued his views since he had witnessed many heartbreaks, as well as the miracles and joy of cricket.<\/p>\n<p>Qamar was witness to many generations of cricketers come and go. He was passionate about collecting autographs on bats from batters who scored over 300 runs in Test cricket.<\/p>\n<p>Very often, he got into my car with that bat, looking more like a cricketer than a writer.<\/p>\n<p>He bowled left-arm spin and would often play for the journalists team during the friendly games here. Later on, he only umpired those matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rbig\">Qamar wrote for reputed newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and The Times of India, apart from Pakistan&#8217;s Dawn, where he had a column.<\/p>\n<p>He was admired by all because his writing carried neither bitterness nor bias, but sheer love for the game, expressed elegantly.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever I walked with him past a team&#8217;s dressing room, players would often greet him by his name. Though dressing rooms were open to him, he never went there, respecting their privacy.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, he was privy to many stories that were not meant to be printed. His relationships were built on trust, and he was not someone to break news based on gossip.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"imgwidth\" title=\"Qamar Ahmed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/21qamar-ahmed-2.jpg\" alt=\"Qamar Ahmed\" style=\"max-width:100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGE: Qamar Ahmed, K R Nayar, Sunil Gavaskar and Pakistan journalists at the Sharjah cricket stadium. Photograph: K R Nayar<\/p>\n<p class=\"rbig\">As a veteran journalist, he believed that he carried a responsibility to protect the game and its players.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, cricket was not just his career, but his lifelong companion. And he stood by it till the end.<\/p>\n<p>He did not merely report the game; he preserved the soul of cricket as something sacred.<\/p>\n<p>Although the front seat in my car will miss his presence, the echoes he left behind will remain for long.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani\/Rediff<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the front seat in my car will miss his presence, the echoes he left behind will remain&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1053431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4101],"tags":[289430,1406,289428,2721,393,44209,289429,6026,289427,289431,79,98151,16,15],"class_list":["post-1053430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-423rd-test","tag-cricket","tag-cricket-voice","tag-dubai","tag-england","tag-guardian","tag-javed-miandad","tag-pakistan","tag-qamar-ahmed","tag-shahid-hashmi","tag-sports","tag-times-of-india","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116822013011135858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}