How many Indian cricket fans remember Mohammed Azharuddin these days? My guess is very few. And yet, the former India captain and stylish middle-order batsman was probably as well-loved as Sachin Tendulkar, when he first burst on the international scene. A momentous debut Test series at home against England in 1984, when Azhar scored three centuries in his first three matches, made him an instant folk hero. He was thin, gawky, innocent and seemed totally naive (and actually probably was, at that point in time).
Azhar showed he was not just a flat-track bully by making a mark on the one-day scene also in the World Championship of Cricket at Melbourne in 1985. He seemed to be at home even on the bouncy Aussie pitches where most Indian batsmen struggle. This, then, was to be Sunil Gavaskar’s successor as the great Indian batsman of his era. Was he that, in the ultimate analysis? Yes and no. As a batsman, Azhar belonged to the highest class as far as talent was concerned. Serious cricket fans go into raptures whenever VVS Laxman gets going with his usual wristy elegance but one should remember that Azhar was the original Hyderabadi artist and the biggest influence on Laxman’s batting style. On his day (and there were many of them in his longish career) Azhar was mouth-watering to watch, though he did have serious flaws when facing short-pitched fast bowling.
But, of course, it all ended disgracefully for Azhar in 2000 when he was accused of match-fixing along with several other top cricketers. He has never, to my knowledge, admitted to any cheating but there seemed to be no doubt in anyone’s minds that he was guilty of at least some shady practices. And thus began his slow disappearance from the minds of cricket fans.
Mind you, Azhar was not just one of India’s finest-ever batsmen - he had also been India’s most successful captain till then. But the BCCI and the other cricket bodies wanted to have nothing do with him anymore. His former team-mates also made it a point never to mention his name even in passing. In this manner ended the career of one of India’s favourite cricketing sons – cruelly, Azhar’s last Test was also the 99th of his career. Maybe that was the story of his life – reaching the very brink of greatness and then falling short.
And yet, there is much to celebrate about Azhar’s career. Before Tendulkar came along, it was Azhar who was the steel frame of India’s middle-order for many years. And through the 1990s, Azhar and Tendulkar formed one of the most attractive batting combinations around. While Azhar was never to become the run-making machine that Gavaskar and Tendulkar were, he did score heavily and many of his key knocks were sublime. Numbers or statistics could never do the man’s talent justice nor were they expected to.
Azhar was also India’s best all-round fielder all through his playing days. He could field anywhere (slips, close-in or in the deep) and was a wonderfully athletic catcher. One rarely saw him dropping catches. Not for him the showmanship of Jonty Rhodes but Azhar could do many of the same things Rhodes could do on the field with far less drama, even after he put on weight dramatically during the mid-1990s. I would even go out on a limb and argue that Azhar was India’s best-ever fielder, period.
As far as Azhar’s captaincy was concerned, it was under him that India won a raft of Tests at home during the early 1990s. Along with team manager Ajit Wadekar, Azhar masterminded the concept of “designer pitches” – dusty, slow surfaces that were specially prepared to help Anil Kumble and his fellow slow bowlers spin India to victory on days 4 and 5 of home Test matches. India became a formidable Test team at home though as tourists they were not yet the force they would become under Saurav Ganguly and MS Dhoni in the 2000s. But the seeds were planted during the Azhar era.
It was towards the latter part of the 1990s that Azhar’s sudden fall from grace started – he started batting strangely and he also began exhibiting erratic behaviour in public, especially towards mediapeople and fans. I remember a few innings where he came out in Tests and started belting the ball around for no reason at all. He took apart Lance Klusener in a test at Kolkata in 1996 with some wild boundary hitting – while it was thrilling to watch it was certainly not the batting style we usually associated with Azhar for years. And then, of course, came the match-fixing allegations which finished his career and ruined his legacy for ever. It was Greek tragedy of the highest order.
So what might have caused this gentle man to go so astray? Was it just greed? Or was it the influence of the crooked characters around him? Were the Sharjah bookies or the Mumbai underworld to blame? It might have been all the above. One will never know for sure, unless Azhar himself comes clean (something that is pretty unlikely to happen, knowing how secretive Indian cricketers usually are about their personal lives). Many blamed Azhar’s second wife, the one-time Bollywood starlet Sangeeta Bijlani, for many of his “crimes” but, to her credit, she has stuck with him through thick and thin. But in recent months there have been rumours of an affair Azhar has been having with a current Indian badminton star - so the last word on the Azhar-Bijlani relationship may not have been written yet.
And what has Azhar been doing for most of the last decade? He reportedly ran a cricket academy in Hyderabad for some years. Then, unexpectedly, Azhar was back in the news when he became the Congress MP for Moradabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh in 2009. This development was a big surprise for many, as his poor public-speaking skills made it seem that Azhar was the least likely candidate around for a stint in Indian politics. So there he remains now – but, knowing how rocky his life has been, the last chapter has not yet been written in the life of India’s prodigal cricketing son.