The words street smart, shrewd, and never-say-die amongst the rest of them would do well to describe the man. Add that to the long list of records that Javed Miandad processes, and one has a batsman that every captain would want to have in their team.

Miandad scored a ton in his debut match – and again in his 100th – and holds a record for being one of those batsmen to have never had their Test average fall below 50 in his entire Test career. His aggregate of 8832 Test runs was a record for the highest by a Pakistani; unbroken till at least 2008. If this is not enough, he has also played in six World Cups, became the first batsman to score a 1000 runs in the World Cups and at one point in 1987, had nine consecutive scores of fifty or more in ODIs!

However, it was not only his batting that got under the skin of the oppositions, but also his on field antics in ‘sledging’ the fielders and the bowlers. His ‘kangaroo hops’ while batting against India in the 1992 World Cup, in response to Kiran More’s continuous appeals was a spectacle worth going miles for.

It was this street smartness that helped him as a coach of the Pakistani team, a role he played thrice after his retirement from the game.