Recalling Azharuddin—wristy stroke maker, astute captain & brilliant fielder—on his 56th B'day

Cricketers and fans from the cricketing fraternity across the world took to social media to extend their greetings to former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin who turned 56 on Friday.

Indian cricket has been known to produce some of the finest exponents with the willow. The sub-continent giants have etched a name for themselves by producing explosive openers in Virender Sehwag, prolific run scorers in Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli and fine technicians in the game like Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid who ground the opposition with their dodged defence and temperament.

However, one signature skill which places the Indian batsmen a notch above the rest was their wristy stroke play and perhaps nobody was a finer exponent of the trait than Mohammad Azharuddin. There indeed was something special about the way Azhar, the stylish stroke-maker from Hyderabad, flicked the ball to the leg side with those supple wrists and made batting look rather effortless. The tall and lanky right-handed from the City of Nizams had a regal flair to his batting which was pleasing to the eye.

Mohammad Azharuddin announced himself with a bang on the international stage in 1984 by scoring three successive hundreds donning the whites for India. He made a reputation for himself in a batting lineup which had stalwarts like Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Navjot Singh Sidhu and K Srikanth to name a few. The youngster caught the attention of many with his aggressive yet elegant stroke play. Azhar was indeed a magician with the willow who manoeuvred the ball into the gaps with that trademark uncorking of the wrists.

In the 90s, Azhar was arguably India’s most dependable middle-order batsman along with Rahul Dravid. Azhar made the number four position his own and became the lynchpin of the middle order for over a decade. He was brilliant at rotating the strike courtesy his ability to pierce the gaps at will. Adept at playing pace or spin, Azhar would play the waiting game as well launch into an attack with a plethora of shots. A spectacle of his breath-taking batting was his whirlwind 62-ball ton against New Zealand in 1988 at Baroda, which at that time was the fastest ODI ton by an Indian.

Another dimension of his game was his brilliant fielding which stood out from the rest of his peers. Azhar, one of the fittest cricketers of his generation was by far India’s best fielder along with Ajay Jadeja. Azhar with his superlative reflexes could pull off some brilliant catches in the slip cordon and affect some stunning run-outs. His one-handed flick throw left many batsmen wanting and the fans speechless. He is hailed as India's best close in fielder, taking the most number of catches (156) for the Men in Blue in limited-overs cricket.

Besides his batting, Azhar was undoubtedly one of India’s finest skippers in both forms of the game. Under his captaincy during the 90s, India were arguably one of the strongest teams on home soil forming an impregnable fortress. Before the likes of Ganguly and Dhoni led India, Azhar was India’s most successful Test and ODI captain, winning 14 out of the 47 Tests and 90 out of the 174 ODI he skippered. He was a master strategist who played to his sides strengths which revolved around a formidable batting lineup and spin attack. While 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar, Ajay Jadeja, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Robin Singh notched up some beefy totals with their stroke play, the spin trio of Anil Kumble, Ventakpathy Raju and Rajesh Chauhan cast a web around most of the batting line-ups in his time. Under Azhar’s leadership, India won multiple multi-nation ODI tournaments, notable among them being the Asia Cup, Hero Cup, Singer Cup, Wills Tri-Nation Cup, Coca Cola Trophy, Sharjah Cup and the Independence Cup. His moment under the sun came when he captained India to the semi-finals of the 1996 World Cup, only to lose a dramatic and forgettable encounter to eventual champions Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

In a career spanning almost two decades, Azhar had achieved enough and promised much more to share space with the greatest stalwarts of the game but unfortunately, his career came to an abrupt end due to his involvement in the match-fixing scandal.

 With over 15000 runs in international cricket studded with 65 tons, Mohammad Azharuddin goes down as one of India’s greatest batsman to have graced the game.