Squash Legend Jahangir Khan Visits California
By Ras Siddiqui
We had a rare visitor to the Sacramento region on Friday March 8 th who deserves greater visibility due to his unmatched feat in a sport. Jahangir Khan is considered the greatest male squash player that the game of squash has ever seen, and one felt privileged to welcome him to our region even though some readers here would not know much about him. That is unless playing squash is one’s passion and its history is of interest, or at the very least, one knows the difference between the vegetable and the sport! Racquetball is better known here in America although squash has been around a lot longer. The fact that Americans have not dominated this sport internationally remains a factor in its lesser visibility.
The British Open Squash Championships were once the tournaments which ruled who the world champion of the sport was, but with the 1976 debut of the World Squash Championships, the gold standard shifted there even though the British Open remains very important to the game. And for some odd reason Egyptian and Pakistani players have historically dominated both these tournaments over the years even though the game is of British origin. From 1932 to 1950 the Egyptians ruled the British Open by winning 10 out of 11 finals, and from 1951 to 1963 the Pakistanis won thirteen straight championships. And then again from 1982 to 1997 the Pakistanis won sixteen straight titles. In 2023 Egypt’s Ali Farag remained on top of the squash world winning both the British Open and the World Squash Championship.
The World Squash Championships began in the year 1976 and consolidated the identity of the world champion. Australia’s legendary Geoff Hunt won the first four. And that eventually brought him against Pakistan’s Jahangir Khan, our distinguished visitor, who won the World Championship five out of the next six years (1981 to 1985) plus once again in 1988. His father Roshan Khan had won the British Open once before in 1957 and Jahangir won the same a record 10 times. The Pakistani winning streak continued with Jansher Khan who won the world title a record eight times.
It is hard to believe that Pakistan’s contribution to this sport all started with a former unpaid ball boy at a club in Peshawar by the name of Hashim Khan who won the British Open seven times in the 1950s. Hashim started the “Khan Squash Dynasty" and Jahangir Khan is a relative of his from their next generation, the son of his second cousin. This writer had the privilege of meeting Hashim Khan in Denver in the mid-1980s. He died in Aurora, Colorado in August 2014 at the age of 100. It has been reported that his first-time wearing shoes while playing squash was during his British Open debut in 1951. It appears that he played the game barefoot before then!
Jahangir Khan is widely recognized as the greatest squash player of all time. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the winningest athlete in any sport because between 1981 and 1986 he won 555 squash games straight without losing even one. No one has been able to play that many games in any sport at the professional level without a single loss.
Jahangir Khan was in California’s capital region at a fundraiser for the Shahid Afridi Foundation which assists poor and disadvantaged people in Pakistan by helping them gain access to education, medical care, and clean water. The foundation is named after cricket hero Shahid Afridi who was renowned as a real slugger (nicknamed Boom Boom) in the sport. Both Afridi and Khan are ethnic Pashtuns but do not appear to be otherwise related.
Khan is now 60 years old and still looks fit but heavier. He is currently the Emeritus President of the World Squash Federation. On March 8 th at the Town & Country Event Center in Rancho Cordova I approached him and explained why he is the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) and not a goat of the game. One does not ever want to insult a Pashtun! He smiled and said thanks as if he did not deserve it. I found him to be a very humble person who stayed focused on trying to help his friend Afridi’s ongoing charity effort. Jahangir is now a legend of the game, but one who had to work very hard to earn his accolades.
There were a lot more cricket fans at this event than squash fans as people rushed to get a photo taken with Afridi. But some approached Jahangir Khan because the GOAT of squash richly deserved separate attention.
