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Squash immortal: Jehangir Khan

The game of squash has been dominated by Pakistani players through out its existence, specially  by the Khans who have won more then 80% percent of tournament titles. Jehangir Khan is among the generation of khans that dominated the game. The only time that Pakistan’s dominance was not seen is unfortunately now.

Jehangir Khan is the youngest son of Roshan and younger brother of Torsam. He took the world by storm in the 1980s.

Born a sickly child, he was lucky to receive immediate medical attention, and later proved to be one of Pakistan's biggest stars. He defeated four seeded players to become the youngest World Amateur champion in September 1979, when he was less than sixteen years of age.

Jonah Barrington's technical assessment of Jehangir's game proved bold and accurate in every respect, except the length of time he predicted it would take Jehangir to win the Open:

"He really is a revelation. He has a very athletic heart, which can only improve, and has most un-Pakistani feeling for running and other general training. His length and width hitting are of a very high order already, and he has an obvious talent for the short game which within five years will provide his unfortunate opponents with a great deal of misery. I have no doubt that by the time he is twenty-one he will have won the World Open"

Jehangir's first period of glory was marred by tragedy when, just a few weeks later, his elder brother Torsam collapsed and died during a game in Adelaide. His grief was compounded by frustration when an injury sustained in training forced him to withdraw from the British Amateur Championship.

He made his professional debut in the ISPA Championship in early 1980 and immediately proved that his victory in Australia was no fluke, by leading world number four Hiddy Jehan two games to one before going down in five.

Jehangir's improvements in the next twelve months were the most dramatic in the history of the game, with his rank going from #26 to #2.

By December 1981, Jehangir achieved #1 rank at only 17 year of age after he defeated Geoff Hunt in the World Open final. He went on to win the British Open in 1982.Then what he achieved few have managed to achieve.. He remained unbeaten for 500 consecutive matches ,remained Number One Player for 5 years consecutively, won 6 World Open titles(1981-85,88) ,and remained an amazing 10 years consecutive British Open Champion From 1982-1991 and won every kind of tournament he played.

And don’t forget get that physically squash is one of the most difficult sports to play as it required a lot of stamina,leg power and agility. And to remain in perfect shape is not easy so Jehangir’s secret for remaining in shape was "Rise at 5 a.m., run for 10 miles, sprint over 400 yards several times, work on the court with and then without the racket and then go for weight training and height climbing''

By the year 1992 Jehangir left squash for about 7 months but returned in 1993 when he was ranked 33^rd in the world, he directly took part in the word championship were he proved why Jehangir Is called a legend ,he entered as 33^rd in the world and played through his way to beat all above ranked players he played to reach the final were he was challenged again by his successor Jansher khan , Jehangir played very well but was defeated by world number 1 ultimately, and became runner up in the world championships by beating all but world number one fellow country Man legend Jansher Khan. After the world Championships Jehangir retired.

After his retirement he was succeeded by second greatest player in the squash history Jansher Khan.

In year 2000 Pakistan honored the legend by throwing a party in which people from all categories of life attended and he was awarded “THE SPORTS PERSON OF THE MILLINIUM FOR PAKISTAN”.

Jehangir is now the President Of World Squash Federation” no surprise of his Post as he was and is the “Greatest player ever to play Squash”

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