Miscellaneous

Ghulam Ahmed: The daddy of them all

Ghulam Ahmed was the earliest in a long lineage of classical off spinners from Hyderabad, a mantle currently being donned by the feisty Kanwaljit Singh

Sankhya Krishnan
04-Jul-2000
Ghulam Ahmed was the earliest in a long lineage of classical off spinners from Hyderabad, a mantle currently being donned by the feisty Kanwaljit Singh. The daddy of them all, Ghulam, who would have turned 78 today had he been still in our midst, made his Ranji Trophy debut at the age of 17 in the 1939-40 season. Match figures of 9/157 that bowled Hyderabad to an innings victory over Madras revealed the special nature of this find.
In the next six years the domestic game took up a pre-eminent position in the cricketing calendar and Ghulam's reputation steadily soared. In 1942-43, Ghulam (20 wickets in three games) in tandem with his off spinning twin, a gent named SR Mehta, bowled Hyderabad into the Ranji final where they lost to Baroda. His first taste of international opposition duly came at Chepauk against the Australian Services side in 1945. Playing for South Zone, he acquitted himself rather well with a match analysis of 8/115.
Overlooked for the England tour the following summer when the side was packed with three leg spinners and a left armer, Ghulam bided his time. He received another rebuff as the list of tourists to Australia in 1947-48 saw purveyors of off spin remain out of favour. But Ghulam was not to be denied for very much longer. In the Ranji Trophy that season, he blew away Madras for 88 and 92, with match figures of 14/81 (including 9/53 in the first innings).
Capped for India at the Eden Gardens against the West Indian class of 1948-49, Ghulam snared the marauding Everton Weekes, then in the midst of a phenomenal run glut, twice in the match and thrice in the series. He even had the chance to seal India's maiden Test victory off his own bat while arriving at No.10 in the final Test at Bombay. But an overzealous umpire plucked out the stumps with six runs needed and time enough for another over.
Ghulam's Test career was to span exactly a decade but he played only 22 of the 38 Tests in that period, doing himself no favours at all by declining to tour the West Indies in 1952-53. Coming as it did just after a peach of a display in England on his first tour with the Indian team in 1952, where he took more than a third of the wickets in the Tests, the selectors had fair reason to be aggrieved at his attitude.
A bowler of near mythical accuracy, Ghulam never really lived down the charge hurled at him of being essentialy a matting wicket bowler. Dexterously varying the parameters of his craft like flight, loop, line and length, he bowled with a marvellous economy of effort. It was the latter quality that gave him an unlimited capacity for hardship, cheerfully wheeling his arm over for long stretches without respite. In the Ranji semis of 1950-51, Ghulam toiled for 92.3 overs to reap figures of 4/245 as Holkar amassed 757 and won by an innings. It was a first class record until Sonny Ramadhin ejected him from the record books by bowling 98 overs in a Test innings in 1957.
Although his bowling was marked by conspicuous guile, it was tempered by an uncomplicated persona reflecting a singular lack of drive. The quintessential amateur who played the game purely as recreation, even the India captaincy rested lightly on his shoulders. But it was not as though failure left him indifferent. Two crushing defeats inflicted by the Caribbeans under his command in 1958-59 left him satiated with the game's charms and he abdicated from all levels of the game at the very same Eden Gardens where he made his debut. The wheel had finally turned full circle for India's first ever Test off spinner.