by Abhishek Mukherjee
Of all Ghulam Ahmed stories, I shall recall two.
The first is probably apocryphal. During a match, Ghulam, known for his accuracy, was unable to find his length on a matting wicket. One short ball followed after another. Ghulam kept staring at the mat. The initial look of frustration slowly gave in to one of determination.
Ghulam challenged the authorities. He insisted upon measuring the the length of the pitch.
The umpires eventually agreed. Indeed, it was a foot (two feet, say some versions) longer than what it should have been.
Of course it was: how else could Ghulam have bowled short?
The other story involves VM Muddiah, who was touring Hyderabad with a Bangalore club. After a hard day's cricket at Fateh Maidan, Muddiah spotted Ghulam on the ground. He requested him to have a go.
Ghulam obliged. Then in his fifties, Ghulam bowled three balls in plain clothes. They hit off, middle, and leg, in that order.
It was not only about precision. On his Test debut, at 26, Ghulam deceived Weekes twice in flight and had him caught and bowled – though not before the great man got a hundred in each innings.
But with Mankad as the main spinner and Gupte joining the fray later in his career, Ghulam had to be content with playing a support role.
He played only 22 Tests. His 68 wickets came at 30.17. While Ashwin has superior numbers, Ghulam has a better average than the more celebrated Prasanna (30.38), Venkat (36.11), and Harbhajan (32.46).
In his 8 Tests away from home, Ghulam took 24 wickets at 29.41. Put a 20-wicket cut-off, and only Gupte (28.52) has a better average.
On his only tour outside Asia, in England in 1952 (the Trueman-Bedser series), Ghulam picked up 15 wickets at 24.73. No other spinner – Lock, Laker, or Mankad – managed more than 9. He finished the tour with 80 wickets at 21.92. He had never played on wet wickets before that.
One must remember that there was no Solkar or Wadekar or Gavaskar or Dravid or Laxman or Rahane to take those catches off him. In an era preceding dives and slides, hard-hit strokes almost invariably went for fours.
His 407 First-Class wickets came at 22.57. For Hyderabad he took 187 in 36 – that is more than five a match – at under 20. He sent down, on an average, 44.3 overs for them every match. In the 1950-51 Ranji Trophy semi-final against Holkar he sent down 555 balls in an innings, at that point a world record in First-Class cricket.
KN Prabhu wrote that Ghulam possessed the guile of Prasanna and the stamina of Venkat. Jaisimha rated Ghulam ahead of both.
He led India thrice. Of his family members, Asif Iqbal (nephew) and Shoaib Malik (husband of his great-niece Sania Mirza) both led Pakistan.
His only fifty, from No. 11, helped Adhikari add 109 for the last wicket.
Ghulam Ahmed could have been one of India's greatest ever spinners. He could not become one for no fault of his. And in 2020, he has as good as disappeared from mainstream Indian cricket fandom.
He was born on 4 July 1922.