Legendary Indian All-Rounder Syed Abid Ali Passes Away At 83

Aakash Saini

Syed Abid Ali [Source: @VijayCricketFan/x]Syed Abid Ali [Source: @VijayCricketFan/x]

Legendary Indian all-rounder Syed Abid Ali passed away on Wednesday, March 12 at the age of 83. The Hyderabad-born cricketer represented Team India in 29 Tests and five ODI matches between the years 1967 and 1975.

Syed Abid Ali has been widely described as the central figure for revolutionizing Indian fielding. He made his international debut with a Test match at the Adelaide Oval back in December 1967 against Australia, and celebrated the occasion with a career-best six-wicket haul in his first national appearance itself.

Syed Abid Ali passes away at 83

Born in Hyderabad in September 1941, Syed Abid Ali made his international debut for Team India in late-1967 with a Test match against Australia. While he picked up his career-best figures of 6-55 in the match, Abid Ali also scored 66 runs with the bat across both innings. Later in the same tour, he punched out fighting scores of 78 and 81 in Sydney.

His Test career lasted 29 matches where he picked up 47 wickets at an average of 42.12, and scored just over 1,000 runs at an average of 20.36. Notably, in seven of the 29 Tests he played, Abid Ali opened both, the batting as well as bowling for Team India.

Nearly seven years after playing his first Test, Syed Abid Ali made his ODI debut, which also happened to be India’s first-ever ODI match. Aged 32 years and 307 days at the time, he became one of the oldest Indian cricketers to make his ODI debut, doing so at Headingley in Leeds on July 13, 1974.

On March 12, it was reported that Syed Abid Ali has passed at an age of 83 in California. His relative, Reza Khan of North America Cricket League (NACL) confirmed the same through a social media post.