But a sheer delight in full flow on the field of play he more than compensated for the heartburn he had caused, specially in a tight encounter when a goal eas difficult to come by.Maybe it was because of his size or whatever, howsoever crowded the defences, he had the ability to penetrate it and make it count, sometimes in the twinkling of an eye With Manzoor Junior playing at right and Hanif at left and Hassan Sardar as spearhead, these three inside forwards between them had the ablitiy to open windows in any defence, and with consummate ease.
A vital part of pakistan's second Grand Slam,in the early '80s, Hanif had to fade out in circumstance which were not all that glorious . Still he must have had the satisfaction to have won al most everything worth winning .
Like many other stalwarts, Hanif too was called upon to serve the national cause as coach but his stint was predictably rather brief lasting ony a few months in 1993 whin Khalid Mahmood was manager. After all, the most insisciplined of players during his own career,he could hardly have been expected to correct this failing in others. However , almost seven years later he has got another opportunity when he was handed the coaching assignment up to the 2000 Sydney Olympocs.