My brush with Bin Laden, and why Pakistan doesn’t deserve the Khyber Pass

It has been almost a quarter of a century since the Australian men’s cricket team toured Pakistan. In 1998, Mark Taylor made 334 at the frontier city of Peshawar, 50 kilometres from the Afghanistan border, declaring overnight on that score after matching Don Bradman.

In July 2008, Australia abandoned a planned tour of Pakistan and the subsequent Champions Trophy weeks before departure, refusing, on security and health grounds, to visit an elite cricket nation despite continuing the 2005 Ashes tour after central London was attacked by terrorists and 52 people were killed. Not one match was postponed or cancelled in the UK.

Australian cricket teams have a preference for home soil; this tour will be the first overseas trip since the Ashes of 2019. In Mike Coward’s book Cricket Beyond the Bazaar, he writes: “With few exceptions the international cricketer considers a tour of Pakistan an occupational hazard rather than a peak of his profession. An insidious negativism about the game in the Islamic Republic has existed in the minds of the vast majority of Australian cricketers since they played Fazal Mahmood on the mats in Karachi in 1956.” He bamboozled Australia, taking 13-114 as the home side won by nine wickets.

I had the experience of tours of Pakistan in 1980 and 1982. The “highlights” were getting near enough to Afghanistan to hear the sounds of Russian artillery echoing across the Khyber Pass and catching Dengue fever. My 1982 diary concluded with an unprintable thought about ever visiting the country again.

Things changed a lot in the next 20 years. Taylor’s 1998 tour report must have been damning, apart from the batting quality of the Shahi Bagh Stadium pitch. Australian teams pulled out of scheduled tours On three separate occasions. As historian C.L.R James opined: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”

A police commando stands guard as authorities use heavy machinery to demolish Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in 2012.Credit: AP

In the early evening of July 20, 2008, at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, Paddy Harrington seared a fading five wood into a gale to within a few feet of the cup on the 17th to snuff out Greg Norman’s last chance of another British Open title. Four time zones east, the Pakistan cricket squad rose at dawn to venture 120km north of the capital Islamabad to the garrison town of Abbottabad.

A few kilometres from the centre of the city in the northern suburb of Kakul is located the Pakistan Military Academy – America’s West Point or Australia’s Duntroon. Abutting the academy is the Army School of Physical Training, where the cricketers would be housed and train in the strictly disciplined environment.

The head coach had visions of Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik and Umar Gul suffering career-ending injuries. I did draw the line at the use of live ammunition during evasive drills.

The players were greeted at the officers mess by the ceremonial slaughter of a goat, its throat slashed in front of the blanching team. It’s considered a lucky omen – not so much for the goat, but the curry that evening was delicious.

On July 26, 2008, several thousand kilometres west of the Swat Valley, Cadel Evans stuffed up Le Tour time trial and lost the yellow jersey, nine bombs went off in Bangalore and Hyderabad, the Zimbabwe government issued a $100 billion banknote and Cricket Australia announced an Indian tour in lieu of the canned Pakistan trip. Back at the army school, the Pakistan squad carried heavy logs three kilometres up steep hill while the coaching staff took the 4WDs on the scenic route.

Pakistan players relax after a training session at the Abbottabad cricket ground at Kakul with the Shimla Hills in the background.

On the way back, the route taken was usually through two sets of security gates, but this day security was heightened and our bus had to take the alternative route, which meant travelling around the outside of the perimeter fences on a road we had not seen before.

As we headed down the home stretch, I glanced out of the window and noted a building that seemed to me out of place: three stories, the top stories windowless, barbed wire around the second story eaves, a high security wall around the whole complex and, well, just different – like a brick bungalow among fibro huts.

I turned to my companion, David Dwyer, who was the team’s strength and conditioning coach, who I had whisked away from the NSW Waratahs, and motioned toward the building: “That looks a bit weird around here, don’t you reckon? Might be the local drug baron’s castle.”

It was said half in jest, half seriously because the poppy fields of Afghanistan weren’t all that far away.

It never hurts to keep on good terms with the security detail.

At 11.30pm that night a “red alert” bellowed through the bullhorns of the army school. “Do not leave your barracks under any circumstances”, the message, delivered at 100 decibels, in Pashto, Punjabi and, thankfully, English said.

I wondered what it could be. A stray US Army drone perhaps? They had been bombing villages on the Afghan border recently with collateral damage. Or maybe the Indian dispute over Kashmir?

Whatever it was it reminded me of the fragility of the peace on the eastern and western extremities of Pakistan. Half an hour later, the alert was cancelled.

The next morning we were told that the intelligence services had intercepted a mobile phone conversation nearby and a local threat had been “neutralised”.

Fast-forward to May 2, 2011, and I was having breakfast in the LaLit Hotel in New Delhi with current Australia stand-in coach Andrew McDonald, then with the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, who were due to play the Lawson-coached Kochi Tuskers that evening.

Mark Taylor after his 334 in Peshawar in 1998.Credit: Getty

The breakfast room was full of TVs and the news services are front and centre at 8am. The sound is low but the words on one screen caught my gaze: “Bin Laden found – US claims body of 9/11 architect.”

This is the biggest news of the year; biggest of the decade. I point “Ronnie” McDonald in the direction of the screen. “I wonder where they found him?” he ponders.

“Found in Pakistan,” the TV says. No surprise there really, as he was strongly rumoured to be holed up in a cave somewhere in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“I wonder where in Pakistan?” I offered.

“Found in Abbottabad,” the TV answered.

“I’ve been to Abbottabad a couple of times,” I tell the increasingly engaged McDonald. “Just where in Abbottabad?”

We get the answer shortly. In Kakul, right next to the Army School of Physical Training, within a couple of hundred metres of our barracks, in fact. Hiding in plain sight, as it were.

The red alert on the evening of July 26, 2008, might just have been Osama ducking out for groceries.

Three years on, the red alert was again called, but this time it was for three American stealth helicopters, which must have swooped above the barracks that housed the Pakistan cricket team three years before.

In 2019, I was in Canada coaching the Toronto nationals in the GT20 tournament and met the man who was first into Osama bin Laden’s compound that night after the capture and saw the crashed US helicopter. He had lived straight across the fence from the Army School of Physical Training. Cricket takes you to mysterious places to meet interesting people.

I was staying in a room on the fifth floor of the Islamabad Marriot six weeks previous, overlooking the site that was severely damaged by a truck bomb on September 20, 2008, killing 54 people. Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association used this terrorist act yonks from any cricket facility to further justify the cancellation of the tour.

International cricket is returning to Pakistan, slowly. The Pakistan Super League T20 tournament had been transferred to the UAE but is now back on home soil. To see the vision from Gaddafi Stadium this week of the Pakistan Super League matches was heartening. The drone shots took in my old residence at the National Cricket Academy just across the road and I yearn for a return visit.

The Pakistani people have sorely missed the sight of their heroes on the turf of Gaddafi Stadium, National Stadium Lahore, Iqbal Stadium Faisalabad and Multan. It takes more than one international terrorist tsar to scare those people, and I can lay claim to one of the most historical brushes with infamy.

Pat Cummins has an opportunity to prove his captaincy is not limited to home pitches and friendly environments on this tour. The cricket will be of a different style: late season, dry, turning and maybe low-bouncing pitches. His batsmen will need to improve against spin and his team balance may include three spinners. His team will have to adapt to be successful.

Winning away from home is difficult for every Test nation, but whatever challenges that come their way on the cricket grounds they will be hosted with warmth and respect, and their security will be in good hands.

Geoff Lawson was coach of Pakistan in 2007-08.