| |
COVER
STORY: MOHAMMED AZHARUDDIN
Fallen
Hero
Isolated
in Hyderabad, the former Indian captain contemplates a life outside cricket
while the world wonders how he fell so low so soon
By Sharda
Ugra
Sometimes
when Mohammed Azharuddin went out to toss, he would turn to his teammates,
suffering from opening-day jitters, and grin. Collar standing up, spring
itself in his step, he would tell them to relax. "Kuch bhi ho, toss
toh mein kabhi haroonga nahin (Whatever happens, I'll never lose the toss)."
Even if the coin fell the other man's way, Mohammed Azizuddin Azharuddin
was so sure it would turn out to be a good toss to lose. Even if he fell
a long way, he knew he would always land, catlike, on his feet.
 He
was once Lady Luck's favourite companion and he knew it. A child of the
sun who enjoyed its golden glow, God's own gift who never stopped giving
to Indian cricket. Today, he is one with shadows and silence. Venturing
out of his home only rarely, usually after sundown, in a car driven by
a cousin, darkness fallen over his days like an endless northern winter.
What must it be like to be Azharuddin now, his yesterdays destroyed by
a single blow and his tomorrows rendered empty?
In times
when it's easy to be ambiguous about ethics and economical with the truth,
Azhar's is a morality tale stripped down to old-fashioned basics: rags
to riches, riches to ruin. Indian cricket's great purge may require an
Azharuddin to be held up and cast out as an example, but when the noise
has died down, two questions being asked about India's most succcessful
captain will remain: Why? And how?
 |
| Azhar
with Ajay Sharma who gave damning statements to the CBI |
Home is where
you go to when you're whipped, said Muhammad Ali, and Azhar has returned
to Hyderabad. After the cbi and the Income-Tax Department began their
investigations, he left Mumbai, retracing his steps to the town that had
presented him to the world, a 21-year-old whose bat oozed the grace his
gawkiness could not. His journey away from his spiritual and cricketing
roots after he was given the Indian captaincy, is what made the boy he
once was-gauche, generous and God-fearing-into the man he has now become.
He is trying
to find his way back home and after a gap of several years, friends say,
has begun praying five times a day. A few weeks ago, he walked into a
gathering of old friends, a party to celebrate veteran Hyderabad spinner
Kanwaljit Singh's 100 Ranji Trophy games. There wasn't a man in the room,
says Singh, who didn't owe Azhar a debt of gratitude. "He would forever
be opening up his kit and telling young players to take what they wanted.
After he made it big, he came back and gave me my first pair of imported
cricket boots. I will never forget that."
There are
many who will speak of the time Azhar handed over five or six-figure cheques
on their benefit matches. S.L. Venkatapathy Raju-part of India's successful
spin trio in the mid-'90s-now hears people taunting Hyderabad whenever
they play away from home. Azhar's name is the sharpest barb. "We
are all sad because he was an inspiration to us," he says. Azharuddin
turned up at Singh's party looking absolutely "normal". "That's
the way he always was. No matter what he was facing, he always appeared
confident. He never let anything show."
Such nonchalance,
infuriating and intriguing, has characterised Azhar both on and off the
field: whether as a debutant whipping the ball past square using what
his biographer Harsha Bhogle called "wrists of rubber" or while
leading India. Raju Kulkarni, a former Indian bowler who shared rooms
with Azharuddin in their rookie days, puts it down to his fatalism: "He
always talks of muqaddar (fate) and says that God would see him through
his worst times." But a member of the Indian cricket caravan believes
the sangfroid helped Azhar keep his guard up. He says, "I knew Azhar
for 16 years but he never let you know what was in his mind. I don't think
he allowed anyone to know him completely."
Kulkarni
believes he knows him and recalls going to Azhar's one-bedroom house in
Vithalwadi over the years and seeing signs of middle-class prosperity.
First an extension to the home, then a car but always the desire to share
his success. For an essentially introverted man , the award of the Indian
captaincy in 1990-thrown at him like a discarded bouquet and a "Miyan,
captaan banoge?"-set off a chain of events leading to his current
disgrace. "Being India's captain is a lonely business. He was basically
a shy and likeable person. But as captain he had to be a leader, give
orders and still be Azzu bhai," says cricket administrator and writer
Amrit Mathur. Barely cementing his place in the Indian team on the basis
of another century-at-the-crunch in 1989, Azhar took four seasons before
finding success with another lucky leader, coach Ajit Wadekar
Pg.
2
Top
|
|
METRO TODAY
Ayodhya
is an issue that is pre-determined. And it matters little in the present
fuss that the foremost casualty is the truth, writes INDIA TODAY Deputy
Editor Swapan Dasgupta in 