Munir Hussain deserves warm tributes

Founder of Pakistan’s Urdu cricket commentary Munir Hussain, who died of a cardiac arrest in Karachi on July 29, received nearly no coverage in the media.
For those who have little information about the man, I would like to bring to their notice that Munir Hussain became a legend for millions of Pakistanis through his more than three decades of delivering commentary in Urdu, allowing those less versed in English to gain a greater understanding of cricket.
He was presented the “Best Urdu Commentator of the Decade Award 1985-95” and “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation.
Former President of Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA) and a first class cricketer, Hussain was also the founder of the first Urdu cricket magazine Akhbar-e-Watan. He was a sports journalist and a renowned broadcaster having a fan following of his own.
Born on Nov. 29, 1929 in India’s Amritsar, Munir Hussain was a well-informed, affable and God-fearing person, who wrote a popular weekly column in the Urdu daily Jang for several years, and commentated on cricket on television and radio in the 1970s. The Kingdom has no less than 1.5 million Pakistani expatriates and Hussain’s death must have come to them as tragic news. A story on Hussain would have been a warm tribute on behalf of the Pakistani expatriates and cricket lovers from India. — Rohail Khan, Jeddah