Wallis Mathias (4 February 1935 – 1 September 1994) was a Pakistani
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
er who played in 21
Tests
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
Arts and entertainment
* ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film
* ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
from 1955 to 1962. A
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, he was the first non-Muslim cricketer to play for
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
. He belonged to Karachi's
Goan
Goans ( kok, गोंयकार, Romi Konkani: , pt, Goeses) is the demonym used to describe the people native to Goa, India, who form an ethno-linguistic group resulting from the assimilation of Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Indo-Portuguese, an ...
community.
The son of a porter at the
Karachi Gymkhana Club
The Karachi Gymkhana (KG) ( sd, ڪراچي جمخانه, Urdu: کراچی جِمخانہ) is a premier gymkhana (sports club) in the city of Karachi. It is located on Club Road in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Formerly, it was a first class cricke ...
, Mathias was a stylish right-handed middle-order batsman. He made three half centuries in his Test career, all of them against
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
. In the Second Test against West Indies in
Dacca
Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...
in 1958-59, he top-scored in each innings with 64 and 45, as Pakistan won a low-scoring match by 41 runs.
He was also a gifted slip fielder with exceptional reflexes, whose "great skill was to make hard chances look simple". According to
Imtiaz Ahmed, the Test wicket-keeper at the time, he was Pakistan's first good slip fielder, who "changed the atmosphere in the slip cordon", which previously had been the domain of players "who did not want to run".
He was a prolific run scorer in Pakistani domestic cricket. After he returned from the tour of England in 1962, in the next four years he made 1357 runs in 13 matches at an average of 113.08, including his career-best score of 278 not out for
Karachi Blues
Karachi cricket teams competed in the Pakistani first-class cricket tournaments the Patron's Trophy and Quaid-e-Azam Trophy from 1953-54 to 2018-19. Beginning with the 2019-20 season, the city of Karachi has been represented in the Quaid-e-Azam T ...
against
Railways Greens in 1965-66. Four years later he joined the newly formed
National Bank cricket team and became their first ever captain, playing for them until 1976-77 and later coaching the side. In 146 first-class matches he made 7,520 runs, average 44.49, including 16 centuries. He held 130 catches, 22 in Tests.
Mathias died of a
brain haemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
in 1994, aged 59.
Education
He was educated at the
St. Patrick's High School, Karachi
, motto_translation = Through hardships to the stars
, location = Saddar Town, Sindh
, city = Karachi
, province =
, country = Pakistan
, coordinates =
, established =
, foun ...
.
References
External links
Cricinfo profile">Wallis Mathias Cricinfo, Cricinfo profilebr>
Wallis Mathias at CricketArchive
1935 births
1994 deaths
Pakistan Test cricketers
Sindh cricketers
National Bank of Pakistan cricketers
Pakistani Roman Catholics
Pakistani cricketers
Karachi cricketers
Karachi A cricketers
Karachi Blues cricketers
Karachi Whites cricketers
South Zone (Pakistan) cricketers
Pakistani people of Goan descent
St. Patrick's High School, Karachi alumni
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