Eklavya

Ashish Winston Zaidi

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ||

Translation: You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.

Who are the most injury prone, when it comes to cricket? Fast bowlers, right? But what if I tell you there was a fast bowler in our country, who played for 18 years on trot without a single injury. Sounds incredible? But it's true, it's damn true(Kurt Angle style). There was a guy about whom it was said that "he used to intoxicate the ball to such an extent that it used to vacillate profusely". It gives me immense pleasure to present to you a legend from my native state Uttar Pradesh- "Mr Ashish Winston Zaidi".

Everybody has an idol and they wish to meet them someday. In the same way, Ashish's idol was the Haryana Hurricane Kapil Dev and the impression he made on him in their first meeting was something which stuck with Kapil perpetually- which was 14 wickets against Haryana. Kapil was so impressed with the lad that he later recommended him for the MRF pace foundation. He considered his stint at the academy as the paradigm shift in his career. He was naturally an in-swing bowler, but this is where he learnt the art of out-swing and became a complete package.

Ashish was born in Prayagraj (then Allahabad) on 16th September 1971. Yes, today is his birthday and this post is my tribute to the great man. He got picked to play for Uttar Pradesh U-15 in a trial at Guru Gobind Singh Sports college, Lucknow and he took a ten-wicket haul on his U-15 debut. He made his first class debut for UP at the tender age of 17. 

He earned the most interesting moniker which I have heard of, because of his first Hindu name, second Christian name and third Muslim name. He was called "Amar Akbar Anthony" by his team mates. That's India's diversity rolled into one person. He was a "true servant" of UP and played for 18 years without any expectations and only for his passion for the game. When he hung his boots, he had won a Ranji trophy for UP in 2005-06(which was his swansong) and was a proud owner of 378 wickets in 110 matches, which is unheard of, for a fast bowler in Indian conditions.

During an interview, when he was asked if he had any regrets or does he blame anyone for not getting the India cap, he meekly said- "I stopped blaming people long back, because it doesn't change your reality". I was in contention for the 1992 world cup and Singer cup, but I have no idea what happened. The selectors demanded five wicket hauls and I took more than five wickets, day in, day out. The surfaces which I played on, during my time, were either turning tracks or flat tracks. I never saw a trace of grass on them, but I had a penchant for taking wickets.

Ashish's best performance came against Vidarbha in 1999-00 season, when he took 9/45, Mohd Saif took the remaining wicket. Vidarbha was bowled out for 98 and Ashish bowled 20 overs on trot. The interesting part of this herculean effort was that, out of his nine wickets, seven were either bowled or LBW. He took 49 wickets that season and was sure of getting a call from the selectors, but the phone never rang.

Amol Mazumdar's story is so hyped that we feel that he was the most unlucky player ever, but after reading Ashish's story, I beg to differ. Mazumdar's competition was the invincible Sachin Tendulkar. On the contrary, Ashish's competition were Indian pacers of 1990s, who were average at best, apart from Srinath. It has to be the regional bias which kept Ashish away from the Indian cap. Rusi Jeejeebhoy who was in the selectors panel then, once told Ashish that none of the selectors ever brought up his name. Sad, right?