Salim Durani, whose match-winning deliveries and six-hitting abilities are a part of Indian cricket’s folklore, and whose fetching seems to be added a touch of favor and romance to the sport within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, gave up the ghost at his Jamnagar place of dwelling on Sunday. He used to be 88.
Durani, the primary cricketer to win the Arjuna Award, had a surgical procedure after breaking his thigh bone in January.
Young modern day enthusiasts would possibly surprise what used to be so particular about him after having a look on the all-rounder’s world profession: 29 Tests. 1,204 runs (avg: 25) and 75 wickets (avg: 35) spanning 13 years (1960–73). But like his fictional namesake Saleem Sinai In Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’, Durani used to be in central eventualities in numerous key moments of India’s cricket historical past.
Durani’s left-arm spin – he took a 10-wicket haul in Madras – shaped India’s 2-0 overcome England in 1961-62 when sequence wins had been as uncommon as movies with out songs. A couple of months later, the southpaw counterattacked the intimidating Wes Hall of the West Indies for 104 when a number of others “crumpled”. At a time when Mughal-e-Azam’s Prince Salim used to be on 1,000,000 minds, Durani was the folks’s shehzada (prince) Salim. He used to be a hero and a celeb rolled into one.
PM Modi hailed Durani as a “cricketing legend and an institution in himself”.
‘Shehzada’ Salim used to be sixer king
In 1971, the left-arm spinner famously promised captain Ajit Wadekar the evening ahead of that he would get the wickets of Gary Sobers and Clive Lloyd. Durani walked the controversy, resulting in India’s first win over the ambitious Windies at Port of Spain. And in 1973, the left-hander persevered ache to smote two match-winning sixes on a devilish observe, resulting in every other sequence win in opposition to England.
Nowadays when a unmarried IPL sport can witness 15 sixes, it’s simple to problem the dexterity of any individual who struck most effective 15 sixes in his complete Test profession. But once more the ones had been days of various bats and mindsets. No Indian cricketer of that era has a greater consistent with tournament moderate, more or less one six in each 2nd check. “They say lifting the ball is dangerous. I say life itself is dangerous,” quipped Kabul-born Durani in The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1979.
During the 1972–73 sequence, he would continuously hit a sixer because the crowds chanted, “We want sixer”, incomes him the popularity of a six-hitter on call for. In the 1979 article Durani identified that wasn’t the case. “I must clear up this notion about my hitting a six by ‘public demand.’ It so happened that a couple of sixes I hit in the 1972-73 series coincided with the public’s demand.”
Durani’s folks lived in Afghanistan, however they first shifted to Karachi after which to Jamnagar in pre-independence India. His Afghan beginning helped forge a bridge between two countries when he used to be made a unique visitor in Afghanistan’s first Test tournament in opposition to India in Bengaluru in 2018.
Tutored and guided by means of the nice Vinoo Mankadwho additionally performed for Jamnagar, Durani fired a stroke-filled ton for Saurashtra in opposition to Gujarat in his debut Ranji trophies sport in 1953. He performed home cricket for Gujarat too, however cast a long-term dating with Rajasthan; The kings of the western states performed an important position in his existence.
The all-rounder used to be pivotal to Central Zone’s Duleep Trophy triumph in opposition to star-studded West Zone in 1972. Durani scalped 9 wickets and single-handedly urged his facet to a slim two-wicket win with an unbeaten 83.
He will have to have performed extra Tests. Gavaskar wrote in his autobiography, ‘Sunny Days’, “…People call him a ‘wayward genius’. I don’t know about his being wayward, but he is certainly ‘a genius,'”. West Indies were given a style of his genius at Port-of-Spain in 1971. Over six toes tall, Durani may make the ball flip and leap and on a useful floor may conjure an unplayable supply like the person who sneaked via Sobers’ bat and pad and lifted the leg bail.
“It was a dream delivery. In an age of television that ball would have been shown over and over again. And probably, like the Shane Warne delivery that bowled Mike Gatting round the legs, one would have remembered it much more,” Ajit Wadekar , who captained India in that sport, informed this reporter in 2006.
Durani’s seems to be and recognition in the long run earned him a lead section in ‘Charitra’ (1973). Playing a playboy industrialist, he used to be paired with Parveen Babi within the BR Ishara flop. Speaking to this reporter in 2007, the cricketer additionally recalled taking pictures for every other movie, ‘Akhri Din, Pehli Raat’. “Meena Kumari had written the film’s story. We shot about eight reels. Unfortunately, the film was never completed,” mentioned Duraniwho used to be additionally thought to be for roles in ‘Pakeezah’ and ‘Sharmilee’.
For a few years, he can be observed in Delhi’s Press Club of India playing his drink.
Durani, the primary cricketer to win the Arjuna Award, had a surgical procedure after breaking his thigh bone in January.
Young modern day enthusiasts would possibly surprise what used to be so particular about him after having a look on the all-rounder’s world profession: 29 Tests. 1,204 runs (avg: 25) and 75 wickets (avg: 35) spanning 13 years (1960–73). But like his fictional namesake Saleem Sinai In Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’, Durani used to be in central eventualities in numerous key moments of India’s cricket historical past.
Durani’s left-arm spin – he took a 10-wicket haul in Madras – shaped India’s 2-0 overcome England in 1961-62 when sequence wins had been as uncommon as movies with out songs. A couple of months later, the southpaw counterattacked the intimidating Wes Hall of the West Indies for 104 when a number of others “crumpled”. At a time when Mughal-e-Azam’s Prince Salim used to be on 1,000,000 minds, Durani was the folks’s shehzada (prince) Salim. He used to be a hero and a celeb rolled into one.
PM Modi hailed Durani as a “cricketing legend and an institution in himself”.
‘Shehzada’ Salim used to be sixer king
In 1971, the left-arm spinner famously promised captain Ajit Wadekar the evening ahead of that he would get the wickets of Gary Sobers and Clive Lloyd. Durani walked the controversy, resulting in India’s first win over the ambitious Windies at Port of Spain. And in 1973, the left-hander persevered ache to smote two match-winning sixes on a devilish observe, resulting in every other sequence win in opposition to England.
Nowadays when a unmarried IPL sport can witness 15 sixes, it’s simple to problem the dexterity of any individual who struck most effective 15 sixes in his complete Test profession. But once more the ones had been days of various bats and mindsets. No Indian cricketer of that era has a greater consistent with tournament moderate, more or less one six in each 2nd check. “They say lifting the ball is dangerous. I say life itself is dangerous,” quipped Kabul-born Durani in The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1979.
During the 1972–73 sequence, he would continuously hit a sixer because the crowds chanted, “We want sixer”, incomes him the popularity of a six-hitter on call for. In the 1979 article Durani identified that wasn’t the case. “I must clear up this notion about my hitting a six by ‘public demand.’ It so happened that a couple of sixes I hit in the 1972-73 series coincided with the public’s demand.”
Durani’s folks lived in Afghanistan, however they first shifted to Karachi after which to Jamnagar in pre-independence India. His Afghan beginning helped forge a bridge between two countries when he used to be made a unique visitor in Afghanistan’s first Test tournament in opposition to India in Bengaluru in 2018.
Tutored and guided by means of the nice Vinoo Mankadwho additionally performed for Jamnagar, Durani fired a stroke-filled ton for Saurashtra in opposition to Gujarat in his debut Ranji trophies sport in 1953. He performed home cricket for Gujarat too, however cast a long-term dating with Rajasthan; The kings of the western states performed an important position in his existence.
The all-rounder used to be pivotal to Central Zone’s Duleep Trophy triumph in opposition to star-studded West Zone in 1972. Durani scalped 9 wickets and single-handedly urged his facet to a slim two-wicket win with an unbeaten 83.
He will have to have performed extra Tests. Gavaskar wrote in his autobiography, ‘Sunny Days’, “…People call him a ‘wayward genius’. I don’t know about his being wayward, but he is certainly ‘a genius,'”. West Indies were given a style of his genius at Port-of-Spain in 1971. Over six toes tall, Durani may make the ball flip and leap and on a useful floor may conjure an unplayable supply like the person who sneaked via Sobers’ bat and pad and lifted the leg bail.
“It was a dream delivery. In an age of television that ball would have been shown over and over again. And probably, like the Shane Warne delivery that bowled Mike Gatting round the legs, one would have remembered it much more,” Ajit Wadekar , who captained India in that sport, informed this reporter in 2006.
Durani’s seems to be and recognition in the long run earned him a lead section in ‘Charitra’ (1973). Playing a playboy industrialist, he used to be paired with Parveen Babi within the BR Ishara flop. Speaking to this reporter in 2007, the cricketer additionally recalled taking pictures for every other movie, ‘Akhri Din, Pehli Raat’. “Meena Kumari had written the film’s story. We shot about eight reels. Unfortunately, the film was never completed,” mentioned Duraniwho used to be additionally thought to be for roles in ‘Pakeezah’ and ‘Sharmilee’.
For a few years, he can be observed in Delhi’s Press Club of India playing his drink.