Get To Know Squash Champion Hashim Khan

Sports thrived in British India, with national teams for various games. After the 1947 Partition of South Asia, many athletes moved across the eastern and western borders to Pakistan.The founding father of Pakistan, Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was himself a good sportsman, with a keen interest in snooker. He understood the vital role athletics played in the inculcation of discipline in people and development of societies.

When Pakistan was just beginning to show itself to the world, Khan took it to the victory stands seven times. He won the de-facto world championship- the British Open, six times in a row between 1951-56 and once more in 1958.

Khan's stellar performances conquered the global contest for his country of choice. He is the squash legend who departed on 18th August 2014 but left behind a story of sportsmanship, struggle and success.

Khan is believed to be the progenitor of Squash in Pakistan and beyond as his second and third generation family also include some of the most successful Squash players in the world-and so he lives on.

At age 11, he had to quit school and take up the job of a ball boy at the Squash court of the same club. He was also expected to clean the courts for which he received the nominal amount of four Annas (a previously used monetary denomination-one sixteenth part of a Pakistani rupee) everyday.

As a ball boy, his job was to fetch the balls that had been hit over and beyond the courts. However, the more this menial work pushed him away from the courts the more committed he was to return.

Once the British officers were done playing, the ball boys would take over the courts and practice.

Khan gave it so much time and effort that he emerged as a self taught coach.

In 1942 Khan was appointed as the Squash coach at the British Air Force officers’ mess and won the first All India championship in 1944 and two more times in 1945 and 1946.

After independence, in 1947 Khan became the designated Squash coach at the Pakistan Air Force and won the first-ever Pakistan Squash championship in 1949. It is no exaggeration to say that Hashim Khan’s career is an overall winning streak. He carried the trophy for Pakistan throughout his life.

One of the most dramatic of these victories was the first British Open he played against Mahmoud El Karim- who was representing Egypt. Khan beat El Karim in the 1951 final with a 9–5, 9–0, 9–0.

It is reported that this was the first match in which he wore a pair of shoes as he was used to playing barefoot. He beat Karim a second time in 1952 with the nail biting scores: 9–5, 9–7, 9–0.

Khan was on a stride for the next four years. He beat R.B.R Wilson (1953 final), his own younger brother Azam Khan (Finals of 1954-55) and cousin Roshan Khan (Final of 1956).

The streak was broken in 1957 when Hashim lost to Roshan in the 1957 British Open, but he reclaimed it the following year.

Apart from British tournaments, Khan also won six North American championships. He won the US Open and the Canadian Open thrice.

Unofficially, he is said to have been playing Squash till he was 93. One mystery surrounding Hashim Khan was his official age. His family speculated that he lived to be at least a 100 years old, if not older.

A figure of inspiration within the family, Hashim trained his younger brother Azam Khan as well. They later competed against each other. His second cousin Roshan Khan was a legend in his own right and his sons, Torsam and Jahangir were trained to become international level players. Torsam passed away at age 27, while playing a match in Australia.

The death of his brother Torsam, led to a brief interlude in Jahangir’s own career, but he took that close personal loss as a personal battle and emerged as the absolute invincible Squash hero. He won 10 British Open titles in a row in the 1980s.

Among Hasim Khan's children, his eldest son Sharif went on to become a big name in squash. He won the North American Open title a total of 12 times. His sons Aziz, Gulmast, Liaqat, Salim, Shaukat and Mohammad also featured in the hardball squash circuit during the 1970s.

The legacy of the famed squash family continues with Carla Khan, granddaughter of Azam Khan. She won her first title in November 2002, when she beat Mexican player Samantha Teran at the El Salvador Open. It is remarkable how Hashim Khan paved the way for squash as a sport not only for himself but for the generations to come. Apart from being an impeccable Squash player he also stood undefeated in the face of misfortune and loss.

Learning the sport with meagre gear- a broken racket, and used balls, Khan never stopped chasing his dream. His talent and hard work took him everywhere in the world. James Zug, Author of “Squash: A History of the Game” called Hashim Khan the world’s first squash celebrity.