Abid Ali

For other people named Abid Ali, see Abid Ali (disambiguation).
Syed Abid Ali pronunciation (help·info) (born September 9, 1941 in Hyderabad ) is a former all-rounder Indian cricketer. He was 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 School in Hyderabad. In 1956, he was picked to play for Hyderabad Schools by the selectors, who were impressed by his fielding. He scored 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 it to 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 it to the team for the first Test against Australia possibly in the place of the captain M. A. K. Pataudi who dropped out injured. Abid scored 33 in both innings and took 6 wickets for 55, the best by Indian on debut till then. 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. For which 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 in 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 four wickets for 19 runs before lunch on the first day - to reduce England to 4 for 41.
He played for nine more Test matches, but wasn't that impressive. 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* against Kerala in 1968-69 and his best bowling was 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 in 1980. He coached Maldives in late 1990s and UAE between 2002 and 2005. Before coaching UAE, he trained the Andhra team that won the South Zone league in Ranji Trophy in 2001-02. He currently continues to reside in California, where he now coaches promising youngsters at the Stanford Cricket Academy.
Obituaries for him appeared in the media in the early 1990s; in fact he had survived a bypass surgery.
His son Faaqir Ali, who was married to the daughter of the Indian cricketer Syed Kirmani, died from a heart attack in April 2008.[1]
Personal information
Born
9 September 1941 (1941-09-09) (age 68)Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
Batting style
Right-handed
Bowling style
Right arm medium-fast
Role
All-rounder
International information
National side
India
Test debut (cap 116)
23 December 1967 v Australia
Last Test
15 December 1974 v West Indies
ODI debut (cap 1)
13 July 1974 v England
Last ODI
14 June 1975 v New Zealand
Domestic team information
Years
Team
1959/60–1978/79
Hyderabad
Career statistics
Competition
Tests
ODIs
FC
List A
Matches
29
5
212
12
Runs scored
1018
93
8732
169
Batting average
20.36
31.00
29.30
28.16
100s/50s
0/6
0/1
13/41
0/1
Top score
81
70
173*
70
Balls bowled
4164
336
25619
783
Wickets
47
7
397
19
Bowling average
42.12
26.71
28.55
19.31
5 wickets in innings
1
0
14
0
10 wickets in match
0
n/a
0
n/a
Best bowling
6/55
2/22
6/23
3/20
Catches/stumpings
32/–
0/–
190/5
5/–
Source: CricketArchive, 30 September 2008