When the great Pakistani batsmen of the 1970s joined World Series Cricket it looked likely Haroon Rashid, a blazing strokemaker, would take over their mantle. He scored successive hundreds against Mike Brearley's England side in 1977-78 and they clearly had no idea of how to get him out on the batting wickets of Pakistan. In England a few months later it was a different story. Against swing and movement in early season conditions he could not cope and one of the best England attacks of the period - Bob Willis with speed and bounce, Ian Botham with the sharpest swing of his career and Chris Old with swing and seam - exploited his inexperience to the extent that his best score was his 15 at Lord's. Like other promising bats such as Australians Gary Cosier and Craig Sergeant, Haroon never recovered from being asked to take on the role of senior batsman before his time had come. He had been developing nicely before the great schism of 1977. He made his Test debut in Sydney in 1976-77 and his 57 started a Pakistan recovery which lead to an eight wicket victory and a shared series. In West Indies that spring he batted at number three, making 33 and 39 at Bridgetown, 60 in Guyana and 72 in Jamaica. Against England he made 122 and 45 not out at Lahore and 108 and 35 in Hyderabad. After his failures in 1978 he was omitted from the team when the stars were available again during India's visit in 1978-79. He played one Test in Christchurch later that season when the main batsman were late joining the tour because of WSC commitments and scored 40 and 35, only to be dropped for the next Test. (Bob Harragan)