Click to play videoNew Delhi: Having already lost the Test series 2-0 against England, Pakistan go into the Oval match of the ongoing four-match series with just pride to play for.
Incidentally, it was at the same ground 52 years ago that Pakistan beat England on their first tour.
The date was August 17, 1954, and at 109 for two England needed just 59 runs to complete a 2-0 sweep of their Test series against Pakistan, who are on their first tour to country.
But one fast bowler had other plans.
With his deceptive late movement and leg-cutters, Fazal Mahmood ripped through the batting as the likes of Leonard Hutton, Peter May and Denis Compton went back to the pavilion, simply bemused by the hostile fast bowling.
Pakistan won by 24 runs and created history. As he finished off with match figures of 12 wickets for 99 runs, Fazal firmly established Pakistan's presence in the cricketing arena.
The fans who ran onto the pitch as the great man came out on the Oval balcony symbolised that cricket from the sub-continent was there to stay.
"I think no bowler in Pakistan has got the calibre of my father. In the international scene, Pakistan was recognised through cricket, by the extraordinary performances of my father, and other team mates," Fazal's son Shahzad Mahmood says.
For the less fortunate who haven't seen, Fazal was a very good-looking man, with a great crop of wavy locks grown as if for the Brylcreem advertisement which he went on to model for. He was Imran Khan and much more, before Imran Khan.
Before partition, he played Ranji Trophy for Northern India and was selected for India's tour of Australia in 1947-48.
Instead, he chose to live, and play for Pakistan, making them a worthy Test side, just five years after Partition.
A man of principles, Fazal saab, as he is fondly referred to, wasn't very happy with the state of the game, towards the later stages of his life.
"He used to feel very sad when he used to see players playing for the sake of money. He would always think over that 'why these players are not playing for the sake of enjoyment? Why are they playing for money?" the curator of Lahore Gymkhana Museum, Najum Latif, says.
Fazal had a great record with 13 five-wicket hauls in 34 Tests, four 10-wickets hauls in a match and an economy of just over two an over
He was a man who was the father of fast bowling in Pakistan, a legacy which has since been carried forward by Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz, Wasim Akran, Waqar Younis, to the current crop.
And the way the English have destroyed Pakistan in the ongoing series, it looks like Pakistan could do with another Fazal Mahmood.
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