Big-hearted Afghan who played for love of game

PTI

New Delhi, April 2

Sunil Gavaskar once wrote that if ever Salim Durani wrote his autobiography, the apt title would be ‘Ask for a Six’.

For those who are still around to recollect Indian cricket’s days of the 1960s and early 1970s, one thing that would be foremost in almost everyone’s memory is that if the spectators wanted a big hit, Durani duly obliged. By shouting “Sixerrrrr, Sixerrrr’, the 90,000 spectators at the raucous Eden Gardens would egg on the handsome Durani, and legend has it that the very next ball would soar into the stands behind long-on or deep midwicket.

Durani was the ‘people’s man’ whose impact can never be quantified by the 29 Test matches he played over 13 years between 1960 and 1973, or the 1,200-plus runs he scored and 75 wickets he took with his mean left-arm spin.

The 88-year-old breathed his last on Sunday, and the first and only Afghanistan-born cricketer to play Test cricket for India will forever remain ‘Prince Salim’ of Indian cricket, Salim bhai to all young and old, and ‘Salim Uncle’ to Gavaskar. He was a ‘Prince’ in terms of his attitude and won countless hearts.

A lone hundred, three five-wicket hauls and a mediocre batting average of 25-plus do not tell the whole story. At a time when the Test match fee was Rs 300, Durani was more of an amateur, whose only agenda was to enjoy and let the others have fun.

Gavaskar scoring 774 runs in his debut series in the West Indies in 1971 was a seminal moment in Indian cricket history, but would India have been able to win the Test in Port of Spain if ‘Prince Salim’ had not got Clive Lloyd and Sir Garfield Sobers in a single spell? After this, West Indies collapsed in their second innings, leaving the visitors with an easy target to chase. Durani’s crucial bowling figure of 2/21 in 17 overs often gets drowned under the avalanche of runs that Gavaskar and Dilip Sardesai made in the series.

However, on the very next tour of England, he was dumped as the establishment, mainly run by the Mumbai lobby, believed that he didn’t have the technique to survive in English conditions. Students of Indian cricket find it baffling that Durani played all his overseas Tests — eight out of a total of 29 — in the West Indies across two tours. During his international career of nearly a decade and a half, India went to England thrice (1967, 1971, 1974), Australia once (1967) New Zealand (1967), apart from the West Indies (1962 and 1971).

Port of Spain was as much dear to Durani as it later became to Gavaskar. In 1962, a specialist middle-order batter went in at No. 3, with the fearsome Wes Hall, the wily Gary Sobers and the great Lance Gibbs asking probing questions. The result was a career-best knock of 104, with India following on.

Why Durani couldn’t make it to any tour of Australia, England and New Zealand is something that remains beyond anyone’s comprehension, as some below-average players were picked for those tours, and merit was often compromised.

Once, after scoring a half-century at his favourite Eden Gardens against England, Durani was dropped for the Kanpur Test, and the Indian team was subjected to booing and posters of “No Salim, No Test” were displayed. By that time, Durani wasn’t bowling much because the great Bishan Singh Bedi was leading the Indian attack, with Bhagwat Chsndrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkatraghavan for company. He was brought back for the Bombay Test, where he smashed 73 in the first innings with 10 fours and two sixes, and 37 in the second essay. Unfortunately, that turned out to be his last Test as he wasn’t selected for the England tour of 1974.

He continued playing Ranji Trophy for Rajasthan and ended with a distinguished first-class career with 8,545 runs and 484 wickets in 1976-77, when he was well into his mid-40s. Unfortunately for him, One-day International cricket started towards the fag end of his career.

If one scans YouTube for highlights of the matches from the 1960s and 1970s, one can see footage of Durani’s exploits. His was a very economical action and he looked very accurate with a side-on pivot.

His batting was unorthodox and entertaining, but fielding was an anathema to Durani, which made him fall out of favour with the selectors, who believed he was not hardworking enough.

Durani was born during the British rule on a train that was going to Kabul. His father, Abdul Azeez Durani, was a professional cricketer who had migrated from Kabul to Jamnagar in Saurashtra. He used to keep wickets in the Pentangular Tournaments in the 1940s.

Durani was so popular and good-looking that he was cast in a film, Charitra, opposite Parveen Babi in the 197s.

In 2018, when Afghanistan played their first Test in Bengaluru, Durani was felicitated by the Indian board for his Afghan roots. An easy-going person, who never understood how big a player he was, Durani will forever reside as “Shahzada Salim” in the hearts of his fans.

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