MUHAMMAD AZHAR UD DIN (INDIAN)

Introduction:

Muhammad Azhar ud din (born 8 February 1963 in Hyderabad,Andhra Pradesh,India) is a former cricketer and an Indian politician. He was an accomplished batsman and captained the Indian cricket team for much of the 1990, winning the Arjuna Award in 1986. A member of the Indian National Congress, Muhammad Azhar ud din was an M.P from the Moradabad of Uttar Pradesh. Muhammad Azhar ud din was implicated in a match fixing scandal in 2000, and banned for life, but on 8 November 2012, the Andhra Pradesh High Court lifted the ban, describing it as "unsustainable". As a cricketer, he was known for a graceful and fluid batting style, He also won praise else where, with umpire Venkataraghavan stating that "Muhammad Azhar ud din had the best wrists in the game" . He has held records for the fastest hundred in ODIs and also the highest career runs in ODIs. Many say that due to the scandal that married the latter part of his career, he was unable to retire with the honour that befitted him.

Personal Llife:

Muhammad Azhar ud din grew up in Hyderabad and attended All Saints High School, Hyderabad in Hyderabad, of which fellow cricketers Venkatapathy Raju and Noel David are also alumni. While playing cricket, he graduated from Nizaam College, Osmenia University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Muhammad Azhar ud din was first married to Naureen, with whom he had two sons, Asad and Ayaz, and whom he divorced after 9 years of marriage. He then married model actor Sangeeta Bijlani in 1996. The couple separated in 2010. On 16 September 2011, his son Ayazuddin, aged 19, died following a road accident.

Career:

Muhammad Azhar ud din is the only cricketer with the distinction of scoring a century in each of his first three tests.  scored a final total of 22 centuries in test cricket, at an average of 45, and 7 in ODIs, at an average of 37. To date,  As a fielder, he took 156 catches in ODI cricket a world record until surpassed by Mahela Jayawardene. He has also held world records for maximum ODI runs and fastest ODI hundred, both subsequently broken by other players, and scored centuries in his first and last Tests. His highest test score is 199, gained against Sri Lanka, and in 1991, ''Wisden Cricketer of the Year''. Muhammad Azhar ud din was captain of the Indian team for most of the 1990s. Statistically he is one of India's most successful captains, winning 90 ODIs, which was broken by M.S. Dhoni on 2 September 2014 against England overtaking him as the most successful Indian ODI captain with 91 victories. His 14 test match wins as captain was a record until it was bettered by then Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly with 21 test match wins.

Towards the end of his career Muhammad Azhar ud din was accused of match fixing, South African captain Hansie Cronje, in his confession to match fixing, had indicated that Muhammad Azhar ud din was the one to introduce him to the bookies. India's premier investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, conducted an investigation and published a report.

Muhammad Azhar ud din admitted to fixing three ODI matches, and this led both the ICC and the BCCI to ban him for life in 2000. The BCCI lifted the ban on Muhammad Azhar ud din in 2006, even honouring him along with other Indian Test captains in a ceremony in Mumbai during the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy. The ICC, however, has stated that it alone has the right to revoke the ban, despite playing no role in handing out the original ban. On 8 November 2012 a Divisional Bench consisting of Justice Ashutosh Mohanta and Justice Krishna Mohan Reddy of the Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed the ban imposed upon him after the allegations. In one of his interviews, Muhammad Azhar ud din later claimed that he was being targeted because he was from a minority community.

Political Life:

Muhammad Azhar ud din joined the Indian National Congress party on 19 February 2009. He contested the Indian general election, 2009 from Moradabad in western Uttar Pradesh. Prior to election, he announced his intention to construct a university and a stadium in Moradabad, as well as improve the city's electricity problem, but did not deliver. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, he lost against BJP candidate Kunwar Sarvesh Kumar Singh.

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DAVID WILLIAMS (WEST INDIES)

Introduction:

David Williams (born 4 November 1963) is a former West Indies cricketer who played in 11 Tests and 36 one day from 1988-1998.

David Williams struggled to grab Jeff Dujon's place in the international side not least because of his in ability to contribute the weight of runs Dujon managed. Compared to Dujon's Test batting average of 31.94, David Williams achieved just 13.44, with just one score of 50 or more, that was a 65 against England in 1998 which helped them to a three wicket win in Trinidad. However three consecutive ducks followed that innings and he was dropped for the final test of the series.

David Williams played 71 first class matches for Trinidad and Tobago between 1983 and 1999 averaging 22.31, with 151 catches and 39 stumpings, his highest score was 112.

David Williams was appointed to the role of assistant coach to the West Indies team in 2007 prior to the first World Twenty 20 World Championships. He made a surprise return to the field in March 2009, during the final day of the fourth Test against England in Barbados, where he enthusiastically under took the role of substitute fielder.

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PHILIP VERANT SIMMONS (WEST INDIES)

Introduction:

Philip Verant Simmons (born 18 April 1963,''Arima,Trinidad'') is a former all rounder west indies cricketer who played as an opening batsman a useful bowler and a slip fielder.

He proved to be adept at a number of sports, but excelled at cricket and was soon playing for the regional side East Zone. He made the leap to represent Trinidad and Tobago in 1983 with the help and encouragement of Rohan Kanhai, the coach at East Zone.

He played cricket for a number of First class sides in the West Indies and England as well as international cricket for the West Indies cricket team. He was voted a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1997. In his career in First class cricket he averaged 35.61 with the bat and 28.68 with the ball. During the 1996 season with Leicestershire he accumulated 1244 runs and took 56 wickets and 35 catches, helping his side to win the County Championship that year for only the second time in their history. However, like many cricketers before him he found the transition to Test level difficult, although he proved more adept to at the international one day game.

In Dec 1992, during the 8th match of "Benson & Hedges World Series" tournament Philip Simmons won the man of match award for his match winning spell of 10-8-3-4 ''Overs Maidens Runs Conceded Wickets'' with an economy of 0.30 against Pakistan.With this, Philip Simmons holds the world record for most economical ''conceding less runs'' bowling in an ODI among those who completed their maximum quota of overs ''10 overs''.

Injury:

During a 1988 tour match against Gloucestershire on his debut tour of England he was struck on the head by a fast ball from David Lawrence in bad light at Bristol. His heart stopped and he required emergency surgery at Frenchay Hospital, from which he recovered fully. He remains in close contact with the surgeon who saved his life, Nigel Rawlinson.

Coaching:

Philip Simmons retired from playing in 2002 but continued to be involved in the sport as a coach. His efforts in this area lead to him being appointed as the head coach to the Zimbabwe cricket team in 2004. Almost inevitably this proved a difficult and controversial job, not least because he inherited a team heavily weakened thanks to the mass dismissal of most of the senior players.

He found himself having to defend the Test status of his country after an appalling losing streak, including a loss to Bangladesh who were widely seen as the worst Test side in the world. The Zimbabwe cricket union made him a scapegoat for the problems in the side and he was sacked under farcical conditions in August 2005 after persistent rumours of his impending dismissal. The official notice of his removal was dated two days before it was actually released. Many commentators felt that he was simply too kindly and naive to have succeeded in such a difficult position. Philip Simmons succeeded Adrian Birrell as coach of the Ireland national cricket team after the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup.

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BALFOUR PATRICK PATTERSON (WEST INDIES)

Introduction:

Balfour Patrick Patterson (born 15 September 1961) is a former fast bowler  West Indies cricket team in the late 1980 and early 1990.

Patrick Patterson attended Happy Grove High School and Wolmer's School, receiving his Jamaica School Certificate.

Patrick Patterson's father and grandfather played parish level cricket in Jamaica and Patrick Patterson showed ability from an early age and made his debut for Jamaica in 1983. He also played for Lancashire in the English County Championship, between 1984 and 1990, and Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield 1984-85.

Career:

Patrick Patterson introduced international scene in the absence of Michael Holding for the 1986 Sabina Park Test against England, and was instantly heralded as the fastest bowler in the international game. Broadly built, aggressive and quick, Patrick Patterson took seven wickets on debut. He kept his place and became a regular new ball bowler for the West Indies. Graham Gooch, seasoned England opener, remarked that Patrick Patterson frightened him with his fast bowling.

Patrick Patterson returned figures of 5/24 in the first Test of the 1987/8 series against India, bowling them out in 30.3 overs, or little over one session of play on the first day. In a Test Match in Melbourne, 1988-89, during Christmas, just before second last days play, Steve Waugh decided to bounce Patrick Patterson. At the end of the day's play, Patrick Patterson stormed into the Australian dressing room and threatened to kill all the opposition batsmen on the pitch on the fifth and final day of play. Australia were then dismissed for 114 chasing 400. Patrick Patterson finished with five wickets in the innings and nine wickets for the match. He was dropped for disciplinary reasons after the 1992/3 tour to Australia, the last time the West Indies won a series in Australia. Patrick Patterson's career strike rate of 51.9 is amongst the best of all time, although his 93 Test wickets came at a slightly high average of 30.9 owing to his excessively attacking nature and subsequent field settings.

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MALCOLM DINZIL MARSHALL (WEST INDIES)

Introduction:

Malcolm Denzil Marshall (born 18 April 1958-4 November 1999) was a West Indies cricketer.He is a fast bowler, Malcolm Marshall is regarded as one of the fastest pacemen ever to have played Test cricket. His Test bowling average of 20.94 is the best of anyone who has taken 200 or more wickets. He achieved his bowling success despite being, by the standards of other fast bowlers, a short man, he stood at 5 feet 11 inches ''1.80 m'', while most of the great quicks have been well above 6 feet ''1.8 m'' and many great West Indies fast bowlers, such as Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, were 6 feet 6 inches ''1.98 m'' or above. He generated fear some pace from his bowling action, with a dangerous bouncer. Malcolm Marshall lower middle order batsman with ten Test fifties and seven first class centuries.

Personal Life:

Malcolm Marshall was born in Bridgetown, Barbados. His father, Denzil Marshall, was a policeman, but died in a traffic accident when Marshall was one year old. His mother, Eleanor ''nee Welch'' remarried and Malcolm Marshall had one half brother and one half sister. He grew up in the parish of Saint Michael, Barbados and was educated at St Giles Boys' School from 1963 to 1969 and then at Parkinson Comprehensive from 1969 to 1973.

He was partly taught cricket by his grandfather, who helped to bring him up after his father's death. He played cricket for the Banks Brewery team from 1976. His first representative match was a 40 over affair for West Indies Young Cricketers against their English equivalents at Pointe a Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago in August 1976. He made nought and his eight overs disappeared for 53 runs.

Malcolm Marshall's initial senior appearance was a Geddes Grant/Harrison Line Trophy ''List A'' match for Barbados on 13 February 1978, again he made a duck and did not take a wicket. Four days later, he made his first class debut against Jamaica, and whilst he failed to score runs, he claimed 6-77 in the Jamaican first innings. On the back of this single first class appearance he was selected to tour India in 1978/79, many first choice West Indies stars being unavailable having committed themselves to playing World Series Cricket. Malcolm Marshall heard of his selection on the radio while working in the store room at Banks Brewery and later claimed he did not know where India was.

Career:

Malcolm Marshall made his Test debut in the Second Test at Bangalore on 15 December 1978. He immediately developed a career long antipathy to Dilip Vengsarkar due to his aggressive appealing. Despite doing little of note in the three Tests he played on that tour, he did take 37 wickets in all first class games, and Hampshire saw enough in him to take him on as their overseas player for 1979, remaining with the county until 1993. He was in West Indies' World Cup squad, but did not play a match in the tournament. Hampshire were not doing well at the time, but nevertheless he took 47 first class wickets, as well as picking up 5-13 against Glamorgan in the John Player League.

Malcolm Marshall came to prominence in 1980, when in the third Test at Old Trafford he accounted for Mike Gatting, Brian Rose and Peter Willey in short order to spark an England collapse, although the match was eventually drawn despite Malcolm Marshall taking 7-24. After 1980/81 he was out of the Test side for two years, but an excellent 1982 season when he took 134 wickets at under 16 a piece, including a career best 8-71 against Worcestershire, saw him recalled and there after he remained a fixture until the end of his international career. In seven successive Test series from 1982/83 to 1985/86 he took 21 or more wickets each time, in the last five of them averaging under 20. His most productive series in this period was the 1983/84 rubber against India, when he claimed 33 wickets as well as averaging 34 with the bat and making his highest Test score of 92 at Kanpur. A few months later he took five in an innings twice at home against Australia. At the peak of his career, he turned down an offer of US$1 million to join a rebel West Indies team on a tour to South Africa, still suffering international sporting isolation due to apartheid.
By 1984 Malcolm Marshall was seen as one of the finest bowlers in the world, and he demoralised England that summer, especially at Headingley, where he ran through the order in the second innings to finish with 7-53, despite having broken his thumb whilst fielding in the first innings. He also came out to bat at number 11 in West Indies' first innings despite his injury, allowing his team to gain a further psychological advantage as Larry Gomes completed an unbeaten century ''Malcolm Marshall batted one handed that day, with one arm in plaster''. In that series, too, he also ended Andy Lloyd's Test career after just half an hour after hitting him on the head. West Indies won the "black wash" series 5-0.

In 1984/85 he had another successful series at home against New Zealand, although there were calls for his bouncers to be ruled as intimidatory beyond what was acceptable, and that Malcolm Marshall should have been admonished by the umpires. A rising delivery broke the nose of Mike Gatting, England's captain, in a one day match in February 1986, Malcolm Marshall later found bone fragments embedded in the leather of the ball. As well as the bouncer, however, Malcolm Marshall succeeded in swinging the ball in both directions. He also used an in-swinging yorker as well as developing an effective leg cutter, and with the exception of the 1986/87 New Zealanders, against whom he could only manage nine wickets at 32.11, no side seemed to have an answer to him.

1988 saw his career best Test performance of 7-22 at Old Trafford, and he ended the series with 35 wickets in five Tests, at 12.65. Malcolm Marshall was coming towards the end of his international career, moreover, and though he took 11 wickets in the match against India at Port of Spain the following winter, he played his last Test at The Oval in 1991. His final Test wicket, his 376th was that of Graham Gooch. Malcolm Marshall's final appearances for West Indies came in One Day International cricket, the 1992 World Cup. However, in his five matches in the tournament, he took just two wickets, both in the penultimate game against South Africa at Christchurch. This was the only time Malcolm Marshall played for West Indies against South Africa in his career, though he played provincial cricket for Natal in both 1992/93 and 1993/94. Whilst playing at Natal, his experience was invaluable, and his guidance was an influential spark in the early career of Shaun Pollock. Today, Shaun Pollock attributes much of his success to his mentor, Marshall. He was in the Hampshire team that won the 1992 Benson & Hedges Cup. He played for Hampshire again in 1993, taking 28 wickets at a shade over 30 runs apiece, but that was to be the end of his time in county cricket, and in 1994 his only game in England was against the South Africans for the Scarborough President's XI during the Festival. He played five matches for Scotland in the 1995 Benson and Hedges Cup without much success, and his last senior games were for Natal in 1995/96. In his very last senior appearance, against Western Province in a limited overs game at Cape Town, the first of his two victims was his former international team mate Desmond Haynes. He took over 1,000 wickets for Hampshire, and received more than £60,000 ''tax free'' in his benefit year in 1987.

Death:

Malcolm Marshall became coach both of Hampshire and the West Indies, 'In 1996', although the latter's steadily declining standards during this period brought a considerable amount of criticism his way. In 1999, during the World Cup it was revealed that Malcolm Marshall had colon cancer. He immediately left his coaching job to begin treatment, but this was ultimately unsuccessful. He married his long term partner, Connie Roberta Earle, in Romsey on 25 September 1999, and returned to his home town, where he died on 4 November aged forty one.

"The worldwide outpouring of grief," wrote journalist friend Pat Symes, "was testimony to the genuine love and admiration he engendered." At the funeral service at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium in Wildey, Barbados, former West Indies fast bowler Rev. Wes Hall siffilated the last rites in the belief that Malcolm Marshall, having found God again in the last few weeks of his life, was off to Heaven. His coffin was carried at the service by five West Indies captains. He was buried at St Bartholomew's Church, Barbados. The Malcolm Marshall Memorial Trophy was inaugurated in his memory, to be awarded to the leading wicket taker in each England v West Indies Test series. Another trophy with the same name was set up to be the prize in an annual game between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

Malcolm Marshall Memorial cricket games are also played in Hands worth Park, Birmingham. On the Sunday of the UK's August bank holiday, invitation XIs play against an individual's "select eleven".

The entrance road to Hampshire's ground the Rose Bowl is called Marshall Drive in memory of Malcolm Marshall and another West Indies Hampshire great Roy Marshall.

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