Mohammad Azharuddin - the man who made cricket look easy and beautiful
Out came a lanky, tall man; shoulders swinging to and fro with every step he took.
The bat he brought out looked a mere extension of his hand. As he took guard there was an air of nonchalance - almost unwillingness to lock the body into the mold of a stance and then he played.
Played like he was an artist, his bat was his brush, the strokes came down, sending the ball to barely imaginable parts of the boundary.
As the boldness of his strokeplay took the audience and the opposition into a state of awe, he continued in his old own way - the grimace in the face stayed put, the wizardry just continued being unleashed - but the most important, the man still had no air about him and went about playing like he did to earn his living.
In the wildly varying vagaries of Indian cricket, there's arguably nobody else who has seen more extreme. From the highs of being the backbone of the Indian team to the horrible lows of getting embroiled in career-ending accusations of corruption, Mohammad Azharuddin has seen it all.
One of the most beautiful batsmen of the game
In any knowledgeable discussion about great players and wonderful cricketers, his name is bound to come up sooner or later!
A languid frame, supple wrists, impeccable timing and lazy elegance - he combined all of these elements to produce innings of sheer class and ecstasy on more than a few occasions.
He wasn't rock solid in defence for he always had the penchant for playing away from his body, but when he was on song, Azhar was perhaps one of the most beautiful batsmen playing the game.
The way his strokeplay belittled established cricket batting convention and the way he rattled along whilst playing some of his great knocks was and is a sight to behold. The ODI game particularly suited him. He paced his innings with a great degree of control- running quick singles, picking gaps and when the situation demanded- going hell for leather.
Adaptability and artistry were the corner stones of his batting as he played some unforgettable knocks in both formats of the game- albeit having a consistently streaky run trail him all along. His array of shots was just impossible to imagine.
Azhar could send a ball from outside off stump scuttling to the fence through mid-wicket. Maybe a few other batsmen would do it too. But the way his bat came down on the ball, meeting it at the very last moment when his wrists took charge - was poetry in motion.
But then he also drove. Drove like an absolute dream. He carved out sparkling square cuts and sent out imperious hits over the fence whenever he fancied a big shot. Never too far away from failure, he walked the tightrope that demarcated brilliance and recklessness in a way only he could.
That said, his cavalier attitude to batting was what he brought with him along with batting brilliance. His innings would be brisk even if brief.
Fielding and captaincy are sadly the two facets of his game that are talked about less- not for their lack of steadiness, but more so that his batting hogged most of the limelight. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to stack Azhar alongside Mark Waugh, Dravid, Kallis etc. when it came to fielding at slip.
He had a style that was almost absent - agility and an athletic build greatly aiding his movements. He was almost never sloppy and almost always sharp.
Numbers wouldn’t do justice to his leadership skill
All in all, he was a remarkable fielder throughout his career. All this might seem simple and uninteresting to readers that have seen the game evolve into a gymnast’s dream. But considering that Azhar played in an era in which fielding was a semi-menial job, especially in the Indian context and good physical fitness wasn't a mandatory trait for cricketers, he set very high standards in the field for his successors to emulate and eventually better.
The Indian team in the late 80s and 90s wasn't a bad team. Indian teams have never been bad. But that said it wasn't a force to reckon with outside home. There were brilliant individual cricketers but rarely did the team evolve into a unit that was giving opponents a tough time outside the sub-continent. Azhar's greatest contribution here was the way he handled the meagre resources at his disposal, particularly in the bowling department.
Numbers wouldn't do justice to his astute management but he was until Saurav Ganguly bettered him - a steady and a reliable skipper! He was at the helm when India scripted some of her most memorable victories in the 90s.
The irony which gobbled his career up did it really harshly. He was a test match away from representing India in a hundred games - a very big achievement until his successors did that like it was no big deal. His was an aura that was never complete but had resplendent shades all along and statistics will never convey the beauty of his game.
Also read: Was Mohammad Azharuddin a match-fixer?
Azhar's career and his legacy speak a great deal about the unpredictability of life- but in spite of all the allegations levelled against him and a career-ending ban from the game- he was a delight to watch and will remain to be known as a freakish beauty of a batsman.
He was the artist that was vulnerable all along . He looked like he could get out any ball- but in between how he looked and how much he scored was how he did it.
It is sad his legacy is shrouded now - like a mellifluous ghazal by loud new-age music.