He died as he lived - in splendid anonymity - at the age of 76. For a man of his refined skills and subtleties, he was, astonishingly,
on the Test scene for just a decade (1948-58), his 22 appearances for India - at times rationed by him, at times by the selectors -
seeing him bowl not even 1000 overs: 941.4 to be precise (253 of them maidens) for 68 wickets at 30.17 runs each. Figures that
mirror but dimly the litancy of problems he posed for some of the world's finest batsmen. He was in first-class cricket for twice as
long: 20 years (1939-58), his 407 wickets at 22.57 runs each, here, a reminder of how much more he could have done, had be but
willed himself to the task. But then the man was in the game to enjoy it, not to enrich himself at its expense.
He was what Lord Byron so descriptively defined as ''a finish'd gentleman from top to toe.'' Five-foot-eleven he stood in his boots
as he delivered the ball from an aristocratic height, his arm as erect as his frame, the art of off-spin at his finger-tips. A finger
spinner cast in the classical mould was Ghulam Ahmed, holding his own in the game when the comparison was straight with Hugh
Tayfield of South Africa, Ian Johnson of Australia and Jim Laker of England. If you happened to walk into the ground with
Ghulam Ahmed at the top of his bowling run, it is quite likely that you would have mistaken him for the man at mid-off. So
diagonally did he come in to bowl that he resembled more a languid fieldsman moving in with his colleagues. Then he rose to his
full stature as a spinner, releasing the ball with the minimum of effort.
His measured stride proclaimed him to be a man of leisure. The benevolent bureaucrat he was, wearing lightly his years as Joint
Secretary in the Government of Andhra Pradesh. For a man in such an exalted position, remarkably flexible in his attitude to men,
matters and moments was Ghulam Ahmed. I found him to be a man of arts, with the instincts and graces of one to the manor
born, at all times a good listener - one who cultivated a taste for the finest in music, having developed a keen ear for the ghazals of
K. K. Saigal, Begum Akhtar and Talat Mahmood.
Yet, for all his predilections here as the connoisseur, Ghulam Ahmed was game enough to get into the team spirit of things. He
always was encouraging Vijay Manjrekar to warble the better class of popular song, on tour, to lighten those wearying hours we
spent together in the bus, travelling (seldom victorious) from country to country. If as a top-flight off-spinner Ghulam Ahmed came
first and Erapalli Prasanna after, as a 'team singer' Vijay Manjrekar was there earlier. Sanjay Manjrekar came after. On my first
overseas tour, our shared perceptions in music and cricket alike drew me close to Ghulam Ahmed. Music, I divined, was a passion
with him, cricket a mere pastime.
But then Ghulam Ahmed performed in times when the game itself was an ambient pastime. It was this benign bent of mind that
made Ghulam Ahmed settle for 80 wickets (at 21.92 runs each) from the 767.5 overs (226 of them maidens) that he bowled on his
first major tour - of England in 1952. Midway through that summer - the best in England since the war, he encountered drying
wickets to exploit on but four occasions - Ghulam Ahmed had enough. The mirage of 100 wickets on a tour of England was
something for the Vinoo Mankads of this achievement-hungry world to chase. The nearer Ghulam got to that century-of-wickets
'non-target' in his eyes, the more his native Hyderabad beckoned to him.
''Nizam'' his confreres in the Indian team had labelled Ghulam Ahmed for his laidback approach in the field. 'The Prince of Spin'
he was, yet he remained unimpressed by my argument that he would have all but reached the 100-wicket rubicon (a good three
weeks before the end of that near five-month tour) but for no fewer than 17 catches being dropped off his bowling. ''That's all in
the game,'' argued Ghulam dismissively. ''This is the extent to which I could mentally stretch myself. If I have still fallen 20
wickets short of that 100 milestone on this tour, that is it - a detail of interest to you, not to me!''
It was on the s. s. Stratheden, during our way back by boat, that Ghulam Ahmed told me that. For all the loss of focus on the part
of this performer, Peter West (in the Playfair Cricket Annual) was generous in his appraisal of India's first genuine off-spinner of
calibre, one who combined flight with turn, life with lift. Noted Peter West: ''Ghulam Ahmed is a top-class off-break bowler with a
lovely rhythmic action and subtle variations of pace and spin. This sunny-tempered cricketer bowled consistently well in all
conditions and never really failed.''
After such a fulfilling tour, one would logically have expected Ghulam Ahmed to seize every single opening that came his way.
But there he was, refusing to tour the West Indies, just four months after that visit to England, opting out after having been
handpicked as the man for the spinning job (with Vinoo Mankad and Subhash Gupte) in the Caribbean. Peter West observed that
Ghulam ''never really failed.'' In fact, all by himself (sans Mankad) Ghulam Ahmed bowled Vijay Hazare's India to a near winning
position in the first Test at Leeds - before, in that 'trial of weakness against Truemanly pace,' we came up with our infamous
O-for-4 act.
That Headingley Test of June 1952 in fact - and not the Chepauk Test of February 1952 - was the one that Ghulam Ahmed
proceeded to make his own. For that earlier Madras Test had seen Ghulam Ahmed (18-5-53-0 and 26-6-77-4) merely play a
supportive role to Vinoo Mankad (38.5-15-55-8 and 30.5-9-53-4) in fetching India its first-ever Test victory in the international
arena - over Donald Carr's England. It was, therefore, when Ghulam Ahmed was deprived of Vinoo Mankad's vital back-up - four
months after India's Chepauk win to draw that 1951-52 series 1-1 against ''England's second eleven'' that this off-spinner showed
his paces as a world-class exponent of his parabolic craft. Brilliantly supported by G. S. Ramchand in the leg-trap on a
rain-affected Headingley wicket that tested the technique of the best of batsmen, Ghulam Ahmed sent, spinning, performers of the
lineage of Len Hutton (10), Reg Simpson (23), Denis Compton (14) and Tom Graveney (71). Thus was the cream of England's
batting whipped off by Ghulam - 182 for 4 in response to India's 293. This was when Ghulam trapped Allan Watkins (48) lbw,
thereby dismissing the man who had been a thorn in our side during the series preceding in India.
As he walked back with umpire Harold Elliott after that official had, on the dot of tea, ruled Watkins out (hit on the front foot,
trying to sweep), Ghulam, as an off-spinner, was actually commending Elliott for having come up with such a ready lbw verdict
when the batsman had gone on to his front foot. He felt grateful for the umpire's having recognised the reality that his arm-ball had
'held line' in the teeth of Watkins' having played well forward. For, in India, Allan Watkins had got away time and again, just
sticking out his front foot, to come up with scores (in the Test series) of 40 and 137 not out; 80; 68 and 2; 66; 9 and 48. Now,
under the eye of his own umpires in England, Watkins met his offspinning match in Ghulam Ahmed.
On that tour, I heard Ghulam Ahmed tell Frank Chester: ''The umpiring in England is absolutely first-class. It really encourages
spinners to keep trying, after having vainly bowled out our hearts in India, confronted by officials favouring the batsmen from the
moment they go on the front foot.''
Umpire Chester, the last word in correctness, said nothing at that time, accepting the compliment in his usual taciturn manner. But,
in the Lord's Test, this greatest of all umpires I saw in action was spotted to be looking daggers at Ghulam Ahmed for having
come up with a mindless lbw appeal in the face of the ball's having spun across Peter May's bat-and-pad. Ghulam, mind you, had
withdrawn the appeal almost in the same breath in which he had made the inquiry, for Chester's countenance told him that he was
querying English umpiring itself in laying the claim. Ghulam later apologised without reserve to Chester for an appeal that his gut
told him should never have been made.
That happened after the Leeds Test in which Ghulam Ahmed had gone on, in the second innings, to bag the wicket of Peter May
(4), too, caught in the leg cordon. If you note that, in the matches against Cambridge University and Oxford University before that,
Ghulam had snared David Sheppard (59) lbw and clean-bowled Colin Cowdrey (92), you are left wondering about which leading
England batsman this Sultan of Spin did not dismiss on that 1952 tour. Yet the English media had eyes only for Mankad after that
Lord's Test star-turn by Vinoo (72 and 184; 73-24-196-5 and 24-12-35-0). Overlooked, in the Mankad aura, was Ghulam Ahmed's
sterling effort of 63-24-100-5 and 22-8-37-2 in the Leeds Test preceding.
It was a feat that had you reflecting deeply upon what it is that Ghulam Ahmed could not have accomplished, had he made it to
the Indian team (lacking a specialist off-spinner) for the 1946 tour of England. Ghulam showed up that fatal selection error in
perspective as, bowling for The Rest vs India-in-England at Bombay in December 1946, he came up with tell-tale figures of
15-5-31-3 and 32.4-2-94-5. Among Ghulam's victims, not once but twice in that Brabourne Stadium face-off on the batsman's
happy hunting-ground, was Vijay Merchant. This English-acclaimed mega success of the 1946 tour fell lbw to Ghulam, for 48, in
the first innings, and was caught, off this bowler, for 31, next time out.
Yet Vijay Merchant, strangely, never rated Ghulam Ahmed highly. ''Essentially a matting-wicket bowler, easy to play on turf!''
said Vijay Merchant to me. I found that assessment by Vijay Merchant as hard to accept as Ajit Wadekar's viewpoint that B. S.
Chandrasekhar was ''an ordinary bowler.''
You think Ajit Wadekar was the first one, after the Nawab of Pataudi (Jr), to be named as India's captain on the strength of the
Chairman of Selectors' casting vote? Think again - Lala Amarnath had the drop on Vijay Merchant even here! It was Lala
Amarnath's casting vote (as Selection Committee Chairman) that saw Ghulam Ahmed appointed as captain of India (of all five
Tests) against the West Indies in 1958-59.
It was a sad error of judgment, for Ghulam Ahmed never was cut out for command. He failed to show up for the very first Test at
the Brabourne Stadium - exactly as he had stayed away from the Mumbai milieu for the December 1955 Test there (against
Cave's New Zealand) and for the October 1956 Test at the same venue (against Lindwall's Australia). Ghulam Ahmed felt that
the Bombay Press, spearheaded then by A.F.S. Talyarkhan, was vociferously against players from his zone. This, rightly or
wrongly, was a feeling widely shared at the time.
When Ghulam Ahmed finally turned up (in that 1958-59 series against Gerry Alexander's West Indies) to captain India in the
second Test at Kanpur and the third Test at Calcutta, his leadership came under fire for letting the initiative slip, at vital times, by
which India lost both matches and was down 0-2 in the series with but two games to go. Unable to bear the virulent criticism that
followed all round, Ghulam Ahmed, at the end of that Eden Gardens Test lost by an innings and 336 runs (on top of the Kanpur
Test surrendered by 203 runs), peremptorily announced his retirement from the game itself! This is what led to the by now
well-documented spectacle of four Indian captains in five Tests!
The manner of Ghulam Ahmed's departure only drove home the fact that he was much happier off-spinning than leading his men
on to the middle. His high-placed Government service background made Ghulam Ahmed, in fact, the ideal diplomat to represent
the Indian Cricket Board in a number of capacities. As a manager, players were grateful to him for being refreshingly liberal in his
tour outlook. As a selector, too, Ghulam believed in give and take. The only regret here is that he had earlier been in a position to
give India so much more as a tall, easy-actioned off-spinner, but had had no takers in the hour that mattered.
They said Ghulam Ahmed visibly lacked ambition as a wicket-taker. Let not, I say, ''Ambition mock his useful toil'' by which this
'555'-cigarette-era spinner sent down a record 555 balls for Hyderabad vs Holkar! Ghulam believed in just going out there and
turning over his arm. If wickets came his way, well and good, otherwise there always was a song to listen to at the end of the day:
it was still but a game of bat and ball - no more, no less!
Yes, cricket never was war in Ghulam's eyes. From that point in 1939, when as a 17-year-old he came up with a haul of 5 for 95
and 4 for 62 on his Ranji Trophy debut for Hyderabad vs mighty Madras, observers of the cricket setting in India knew that a rare
purveyor of finger-spun slows had 'arrived.' Ghulam Ahmed's 35.2-5-94-4 and 25-0-87-2 in the December-January 1948-49
Calcutta Test against John Goddard's West Indies went on to underline his spin pedigree, his dismissals including Everton Weekes
twice (162 and 101) and Clyde Walcott (54).
From this point itself, it became a matter open for debate whether Ghulam Ahmed was ever going to realise his full potential as an
off-spinner. His refusal to visit the West Indies, early in 1953 with Vijay Hazare's team, was baffling, to say the least, after his
stand-out showing on the 1952 tour of England under the same captain.
There were times when you felt Ghulam Ahmed was next to none as an off-spinner as, for instance, in the November 1956 Eden
Gardens Test-after he had studiedly withdrawn (as before at the eleventh hour) from the previous Bombay Test. In that Eden
Gardens Test, Ghulam Ahmed spun a web all his own, his return of 20.3-6-49-7 and 29-5-81-3 including, as victims, Jim Burke
twice (10 and 2), Peter Burge twice (58 and 22), Neil Harvey (7), Ian Craig (6) and Richie Benaud (24). At such times, Ghulam
Ahmed verily looked a world-beater of an off-spinner.
But it never was like him to take up, in the Test following, from where he had left 'off.' That was not the result-oriented way
Ghulam Ahmed viewed his cricket career. He was the total 'amateur,' one ideally suited, given his soft-spoken manner, to play for
Gentlemen vs Players. Cricket to him was just a contest, never a conquest.
There was not in Ghulam Ahmed a whiff of the hard-nosed professionalism by which his nephew, Asif Iqbal, moved away to
Pakistan by 1961, discerning that his main opportunity lay there. Ghulam Ahmed, for his part, was culturally rooted in Hyderabad,
the picture of dignity and decency at all times. Well-bred and well-read, Ghulam Ahmed brought 'style' to the game he served, in
one form or another, all his life. His death at 76 removes from the imagination that 'flight of fancy' redolent of an era when cricket
was king and spin its queen.
Source: The Hindu
