Abid Ali had the feet of a sprinter, the energy of a marathon runner and the will of a decathlete, but his misfortune was that he was born 20 years too early. His game was made to order for one-day cricket: he bowled brisk medium-pace, fielded outstandingly, and was a busy lower-order batsman who ran between the wickets as if on invisible skates. On his Test debut against Australia at Brisbane in 1967-68, he took a memorable 6 for 55, but Abid Ali was forever destined to play choirboy to India's famous spin quartet. In the same series, he scored 78 and 81 at Sydney, a performance that earned high praise from Jack Fingleton, the noted Australian cricketer-turned-journalist. His career ended abruptly when he was at his peak, after he had top-scored with 70 from No. 7 and taken 2 for 35 against New Zealand in the 1975 World Cup. A bizarre postscript to this premature curtailment came when Abid Ali had the dubious pleasure of reading his own obituary after Farokh Engineer mistakenly announced his death on the air.
H Natarajan