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Indian
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India
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Ind
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Syed Kirmani
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Cricket_no_picpng
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Right-handed batsman (RHB)
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-
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88
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2759
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2704
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2/12
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102
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31
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1
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1300
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0
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0
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1/9
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160/38
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49
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373
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2072
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0/0
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48
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-
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-
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-
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-
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-
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27/9
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24 June
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2005
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(born
December 29 1949 in
Madras ) played
Cricket for the
India and
Karnataka as a
Wicket-keeper .
Popularly known as 'Kiri', Syed Kirmani is generally regarded as the finest wicket keeper to play for India. He started off as an understudy to
Farokh Engineer in the tours of England in
1971 and
1974 and to the
1975 Cricket World Cup . Kirmani made his debut against
New Zealand and in his second Test, equalled the world record of six victims in an innings. He followed this with an atrocious series in West Indies where he missed numerous chances and considerably contributed to
Vivian Richards scoring hundreds in three consecutive Tests.
When New Zealand toured India the next year, he topped the batting averages with 65.33, and scored 305 runs in the tour of Australia. He did not have a very good time behind the stumps against
Pakistan and
West Indies in
1978 -
79 .
He was dropped in favour of
Bharath Reddy , who was considered an inferior 'keeper, for the
1979 Cricket World Cup and the tour of England that followed.
Sunil Gavaskar was also sacked as the captain. Though Kirmani was dropped ostensibly for performance, there was a rumour that the real reason was that both he and Gavaskar had been approached by the organisers of the
Kerry Packer 's
World Series Cricket .
- in five hours nearly lasted out the day. He had 17 catches and two stumpings against Pakistan in the same season and it equalled Naren Tamhane 's Indian record for a single series. Against England in 1981 - 82 , he did not concede a single bye in three consecutive Tests while 1964 runs were scored.
- - in a record stand of 143--- for the ninth wicket in the Madras Test.
At
Bombay the next year, he scored his second hundred in Tests making 102 and adding 235 with
Ravi Shastri , still an Indian record for the seventh wicket. In the Madras Test in the same series, he missed some crucial catches which contributed to an Indian defeat. He was dropped at the end of that series in favour of
Sadanand Viswanath .
Kirmani made a comeback in the Australian tour of
1985 -
86 , where he fared reasonably well. He had just taken an outstanding catch to dismiss
Allan Border in a World Series Cup match, when he hurt his leg badly. He was forced to sit out of the remaining matches of the tournament and that effectively ended his international career. India went for younger keepers like
Kiran More and
Chandrakant Pandit and despite trying hard, Kirmani was never able to regain his place. Later in his career he played for
Railways in domestic cricket for a season, after which he returned to his former team,
Karnataka .
Kirmani played the role of an underworld character in the movie ''Kabhi Ajnabhi The'', which also featured two other cricketers, one was
Sandip Patil . One of his distinguishing characteristics was his clean shaven head. He served as the chairman of the selection committee for India in the early 2000s.
- Christopher Martin-Jenkins, ''The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers''
