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Hyderabad, Jan 8 (Ians) Madrasa-i-Aliya, the alma mater of the nobility of Hyderabad and which later churned out cricketers like Ghulam Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, Abbas Ali Baig, Mohammed Azharuddin and former Indian football captain Shabbir Ali, has completed 150 years.

Azharuddin, Shabbir Ali and other eminent alumni of the institution gathered for a reunion.

Nearly 250 alumni of Madrasa-i-Aliya, now known as Aliya Government School, came for an evening of nostalgia.

Established in 1872 by the Sixth Nizam Nawab Mir Mehboob Ali Khan, the institution’s sesquicentennial celebrations took place at the 138-year old Nizam Club, another historic institution of the Nizam era.

The reunion event was organized by a group of Aliyans whose efforts brought together students from the 1949 batch to the 1980s. Many Aliyans were posthumously remembered on the occasion.

The alumni revisited the remarkable history and legacy of the institution in a short documentary produced by Media Plus Foundation.

Zahid Ali Khan,...

At that time, there was no grass pitch available in Sharjah. The match was played on a cement pitch, in which one team was led by Sunil Gavaskar while the other team was led by Javed Miandad.

Sharjah-based Abdul Rahman Bukhatir went to the famous Njv school in Karachi in the 1960s and 70s and became fascinated by the game of cricket. When he returned to the UAE to establish a vast trading empire, he simply brought cricket with him.

Bukhatir founded the Sharjah Cricket Association in 1974 and for the first time in February 1976, he invited a strong Pakistani team to play two 50-over games against a local XI; iIt was the first tour of Sharjah by any foreign team.

Coming back to the Gavaskar XI and Miandad XI match, Bukhatir planned a charitable match for Pakistan batsman Hanif Mohammad. It was a challenge to get players from India and...