Mazhar-ul-Islam

Mazhar-ul-Islam (also known by his nickname Damal or Damaal), born in Bikrampur, near Dacca,is a Bengali cricketer. He represented the East Pakistan cricket team in four first-class matches during the 1950s.

Mazhar made his 1st class debut against Vinoo Mankad's Indian team at Chittagong in December 1954. He opened the batting for the East Pakistan side, but the under-prepared pitch at Chittagong meant that batsmen from both sides badly struggled to get runs. The highest score of the match was 51 by the Indian WK batsman M. Mantri (uncle of Sunil Gavaskar). Mazhar made only 3 and 8 in the match. Things only marginally improved for Mazhar in his next 1st class match in January 1956, against MCC. He made 9 and 20 in the match before falling to Tony Lock on both occasions. Lock appeared unplayable to the local batsmen, with figures of 8/17 and 3/0.

In January 1958, Mazhar played in two Quaid-e-Azam Trophy matches in Dacca. He also produced his highest 1st class score while playing for East Pakistan against East Pakistan 'A' at Dacca. His score of 35 with 12 wickets helped the East Pakistan side to an easy innings victory, but they were beaten by Dacca University later in the week. Damal had a disappointing match against Dacca University, scoring just 6 & 11. This was his last 1st class match.

During the 1970s Mazhar was heavily involved with building the cricketing structure of the new country of Bangladesh. After his sudden death in 1978, the BCCB introduced the Damal Summer Cricket Cup in Dacca; this was a highly popular club-cricket tournament in Dacca throughout the 1980s.