Calcutta: Hanif Mohammed has summed it up beautifully by saying Fazal Mahmood was a “great human being” in addition to having been a great fast bowler.

In fact, Fazal Saab was generous with everything ? be it extra helpings of his favourite Spanish omelette or even time? And, always, he was impeccably dressed.

Fazal Saab, after all, was Asian cricket’s first pin-up boy.

This correspondent’s last meeting with the legend was as recently as end-February.

Fazal Saab was somewhat under the weather, but promptly agreed to contribute an article for The Telegraph’s 75 years of Indian cricket supplement.

We spoke for over an hour (at the Ayesha Textiles’ Lahore office) and, at the end, one asked for his bank account number to transfer a thank-you amount.

Fazal Saab seemed offended.

After a few seconds, though, he grinned and said: “I don’t have to be paid? Not by an Indian newspaper? It’s with my compliments?”

Fazal Saab represented a generation that’s going to be missed forever.