Over the years, I have lost many of my
cricket mates from Hyderabad to a variety of causes of death—some of them
lifestyle-related. I was heart-broken when a few of my closest friends and seniors died way
before their time: CR Chandran, P Krishnamurti, Mumtaz Hussain, Meher Baba,
Nagesh Hamand, Habib Ahmed, Jaisimha, Pataudi … a ruthless list.
Now comes the devastating news that
boyish, innocent (that’s how I’ll always remember him, not having met him for
over 30 years), hugely talented left-handed opening batsman Shahid Akbar is no more. I learnt a couple of months ago through Ali, a Hyderabadi friend I met on Facebook,
that he was seriously ill, that this time around he might not make it, but
immersed in this dreadful business of life that allows no time for old
friendships and memories, I moved on to other life-and-death matters. When the
news came, I felt this was perhaps the cruellest blow, even though Shahid was
never a part of my intimate circle.
Shahid was a very talented left-handed opening
batsman and brilliant fielder of the second half of the 1970s, a young man many
expected to play for India. Tall and strongly built, Shahid had everything—a sound
defence, a fine range of good cricket shots, a keen eye, and courage against
fast bowling. He was fiercely focused and determined to do well, perhaps too
much so, and he did not know how to unwind. He analysed cricket to paralysis,
and he was unreasonably hard on himself when he failed.
Shahid might have had an easier time growing up in first class cricket had he not been joined in the Hyderabad team by another wonderful, precocious talent in right-handed Saad-bin-Jung. I think Shahid began to feel insecure as soon as Saad made a grand entry into the Hyderabad XI after scoring a thrilling hundred against West Indies opening the innings for South Zone. He was barely 16.
Shahid did not help matters when he appealed against Saad for a handled the ball decision—if I remember right—or did something equally unsporting in a Moin-ud-Dowlah match. Instead of putting it down to an impulsive act of youthful over-competitiveness, some of Hyderabad cricket’s wise old men reprimanded him strongly. I wonder if Shahid ever recovered from all the negative backlash of that single error of judgement on his part.
I was Shahid’s senior teammate during some
of his best knocks for Hyderabad, including his 97 run out against Tamil Nadu
at Chepauk. That day, he batted like the real champion that his pedigree promised
he would be. His grandfather SM Hadi scored an unbeaten 132 against Madras on
his Ranji Trophy debut back in November 1934.
Shahid’s first class career never blossomed
to its full potential; it was cut short by invisible ghosts that seemed to
haunt him when he should really have been peaking. The first signs of abnormal mental
strain were first visible when he played truant at an important game and
actually showed apparent disrespect to cricketers to whom his earlier attitude
had bordered on the reverential. The crack
seemed to widen with time, and soon he had to take a long break from the game.
Many of us were delighted when he seemed to have made a complete recovery in
1981: his double century for State Bank of India versus Andhra Bank at the
Osmania University ground that year was one of the finest innings I have ever
seen. Fresh from a string of successes in local tournaments, I was one of the
bowlers at the receiving end in that match.
At his best, Shahid was a most lovable
young man—shy, courteous, soft-spoken, enormously polite. He was a particularly
good-looking lad. In all mixed gatherings of cricketers’ families, he was
invariably the favourite of the ladies. For, in the charm department, he had no
peer—which of course did not need much doing, the rest of us being the ruffians
we were. In our more rowdy moments, some of us tended to burst into song—a euphemism
for the unholy racket we made—and Shahid’s standard contribution was a
plaintive “Where’s your mama gone?”
Shahid had great respect for my younger
brother Sivaramakrishnan, whom he was hoping to replace in the South Zone team.
A couple of years ago, he wrote Siva a warmly affectionate letter out of the
blue.
Death has snatched away one of the finest
cricketers Hyderabad has produced—never mind that he did not reach the great heights
we all wanted him to attain.
