Abid Ali

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Abid Ali India (Ind)
Batting style	Right-handed batsman (RHB)
Bowling type	Right-arm medium fast
	Tests	ODIs
Matches	29	5
Runs scored	1,018	93
Batting average	20.36	31/00
100s/50s	0/6	0/1
Top score	81	70
Balls bowled	4164	56
Wickets	47	7
Bowling average	42.12	26.71
5 wickets in innings	1	0
10 wickets in match	0	n/a
Best bowling	6/55	2/22
Catches/stumpings	32/0	0/0
As of 1 January 2006 Source: Cricinfo.com

Syed Abid Ali pronunciation (help·info) (born September 9, 1941 in Hyderabad ) was an all-rounder who played cricket for India. He was a big man with a military moutache, a watchful lower order batsman, a medium pace bowler and a brilliant fielder.

Abid Ali attended the St. George's Grammar School and All Saints High in Hyderabad. In 1956, he was picked to play for Hyderabad Schools by the selectors who were impressed by his fielding. He scored against 82 against Kerala and won the best fielder's prize. A few years later when State Bank of Hyderabad formed a cricket team, he was given a job there. He started off as a wicket keeper before becoming a bowler.

Abid made the Hyderabad junior side in 1958-59 and the state Ranji Trophy team in the next year.He hardly bowled in the first few years and did not score his first Ranji hundred till 1967. He was unexpectedly picked for the team to tour Australia and New Zealand that year.

He made the team for the first Test against Australia possibly in the place of the captain M. A. K. Pataudi who dropped out due of an injury. Abid scored 33 in both innings and took 6 wickets for 55, the best by Indian on debut till that point of time. Sent in to open the batting in the third Test he hit 47, his first ten scoring strokes being 4,3,2,4,4,3,3,4,4,4. This was followed by innings of 81 and 78 in the final Test. He was given a hero's welcome when he returned to Hyderabad in March 1968.

He had less success in the New Zealand leg of the tour. In the Christchurch Test, he deliberately threw a ball to protest the suspect bowling action of the New Zealand bowler Gary Bartlett, and was promptly no balled by umpire Fred Goodall.

Abid played significant roles in India's first ever wins in the West Indies and in England in 1971. He was the non-striker when Sunil Gavaskar scored the winning runs against the West Indies in the Port of Spain Test. When West Indies tried to chase a difficult target in the final Test of the series, Abid bowled Rohan Kanhai and Garry Sobers off consecutive balls. A few months later, he hit the winning boundary when India defeated England by four wickets at the Oval. In the Manchester Test of this series, he took the first he took four wickets for 19 runs before lunch on the first day to reduce England to 4 for 41.

Career record	First-class	List A
Matches	212	12
Runs scored	8,732	169
Batting average	29.30	28.16
100s/50s	13/41	0/1
Top score	173*	70
Balls bowled	25,749	783
Wickets	397	19
Bowling average	28.55	19.31
5 wickets in innings	14	0
10 wickets in match	0	N/A
Best Bowling	6/23	3/20
Catches/Stumpings	190/5	5/0
As of 1 January 2006 Source: [1] Edit this template

He played for nine more Test matches but had little to show for it. He scored 70 runs against New Zealand in the 1975 World Cup in what was to be his last international innings. He continued to play first class cricket for four more years. Abid Ali scored more than 2000 runs and took over hundred wickets for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy. His highest individual score was 173* scored against Kerala in 1968-69 and the best bowling 6 for 23 against Surrey at the Oval in 1974.

Abid coached the junior team of Hyderabad for a few years before moving to California for a few years in 1980. He coached the teams of Maldives in late 1990s and UAE between 2002 and 2005. Prior to his appointment in UAE he was the coach of Andhra which won the South Zone league in Ranji Trophy in 2001-02. He returned to Andhra in 2005-06.

Obituaries for him appeared in the media in the early 1990s, but in fact the bypass surgery he had undergone was successful.

His son is married to the daughter of the Indian cricketer Syed Kirmani.

[edit] References

• Sujit Mukherjee, Matched winners, Orient Longman (1996), p 76-90
• Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Who's Who of Test Cricketers
• V. V. Subrahmanyam, Abid needs help, Sportstar, March 4, 2006 [2]

[edit] External links

• Cricketarchive Profile
• Cricinfo Profile

Persondata
NAME	Abid Ali, Syed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Abid Ali
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Cricketer
DATE OF BIRTH	September 9, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hyderabad, India
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH

	India squad - 1975 Cricket World Cup
1 Venkataraghavan | 2 Solkar | 3 Gaekwad | 4 Ghavri | 5 Patel | 6 Viswanath | 7 Gavaskar | 8 Engineer | 9 Ali | 10 Amarnath | 11 Lal | 12 Bedi | 13 none | 14 none | 15 none | Coach: none