SYED ABID ALI


A YEAR'S MIND

🏏🏏
SYED ABID ALI
(9 Sep 1941 – 12 Mar 2025)

A member of India's first wins in the Caribbean and New Zealand, Hyderabad born Syed Abid Ali belonged to a generation which included some of the finest cricketing brains and exponents like Ghulam Ahmed, Mansoor Ali Khan of Pataudi, M. L. Jaisimha, Abbas Ali Baig and P. Krishnamurthy, to name a few...

Arguably one of the most natural cricketers Hyderabad ever produced, Abid Ali excelled in every department of the game, always giving more than a hundred percent, with an untiring lion's heart perfectly befitting the grace of the sport...

An embodiment of versatility, Abid Ali had a dream Test debut Down Under at the Adelaide Oval in 1967. Opening the bowling he picked up 6 wickets for 55, which included greats such as Bob Simpson, Bill Lawry, Bob Cowper, and Barry Jarman...

Also, Abid Ali’s innings of 78 and 81 in the same series underlined his potential for excellence, one who could open both batting and bowling, which he did in seven Test matches, heralding the arrival of a quality allrounder for India...

While Indian cricket was dominated by the power of its spin quartet — Bedi, Prasanna, Chandrasekhar, and Venkatraghavan — during his heydays, Abid Ali provided a welcome medium pace option. Additionally, with the likes of Rusi Surti, Ajit Wadekar and later on Eknath Solkar, he provided the necessary "teeth" for the above-mentioned quartet's incisiveness...

Friskiness on the field being uncommon during his times, Abid Ali infused an athletic dynamism into the faculty of fielding. With fleet-footed agility and strong throwing arms, one could lose count of the number of runs Abid Ali might have saved in the low scoring games of those days, literally the glaring difference between a win and a loss...

Abid Ali’s role in the series wins against West Indies and England in 1971, under Ajit Wadekar, shall remain etched in our memories...

In 29 Tests Abid Ali scored 1018 runs with 81 as his highest, 6 fifties, 47 wickets and 32 catches. He played 5 ODIs at the inaugural World Cup in 1975...

Playing for Hyderabad and South Zone, Abid Ali’s domestic record has been impressive. From 212 games he scored 8732 runs, 173* as his highest, 13 hundreds and 41 fifties, 397 wickets, 190 catches and 5 stumpings...

Braving a major heart surgery in the 1990s and the tragic demise of his son Syed Faqeer Ali aged 33 in 2008, the then Andhra Pradesh coach Abid Ali eventually decided to shift to California...

Pundits opine that Abid Ali perhaps performed two decades too early, going by his enthusiasm, dedication, fitness, grit and temperament, factors that have emerged as game changers in current times...

The world bade adieu to Abid Ali exactly a year ago, as he breathed his last in the US, with age related ailments, drawing curtains on an illustrious career of one of India's finest cricketing allrounders. He was 83...

While Abid Ali may not be a household name in cricketing parlance - courtesy being a bowler in the era of India’s famous spin quartet - he certainly deserves to be recognized and appreciated much on the same lines of the other stalwarts of his times...

🙏🙏🌹💐   🇮🇳

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