Mir Sultan Khan: Recognised decades later, meet Asia’s first Grandmaster

A man from pre-Independence Punjab who took Europe’s chess scene by storm, who became British champion three times, and who was the first Asian player to break into the upper echelons of international chess, finally gets his due. Almost 58 years after his death, the international chess federation, Fide, has awarded Mir Sultan Khan the honorary Grandmaster (GM) title, making him the first person from Pakistan to hold the honour. Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich presented Pakistani government officials with the posthumous GM title document, awarding an enigmatic genius who competed with, and defeated, some of the world’s best players at the time — recognition he perhaps never found in his lifetime.