From Ian Botham to Dilip Ghosh, Kirti Azad’s ability to surprise remains intact

If Dilip Ghosh ends up with a look of shock on his face wondering what hit him, he can just go back and watch a four-decade-old video of Ian Botham, with disbelief written across every contour of his face. Be it on the 70-foot strip of London’s Oval or on the corner of a far-flung political field in the industrial city of Bardhaman-Durgapur, we can’t help but marvel at Kirti Azad’s ability to put heavyweights in their place.

Leading by over 1.37 lakh votes at present, Azad is all set to unseat one of the BJP’s most important state leaders in a constituency that was anything but familiar to him when he was first declared a Trinamool Congress candidate.

In that World Cup semi-final at the Oval, Azad’s famous ‘grubber’ – a delivery that remains terribly low, cleared Botham. The world’s No. 1 all-rounder at that time, Botham could only look back in frustration at his noisy furniture.

On Tuesday, when the man from Bihar is about to decimate Ghosh in a Bengal township where there is a sizeable population of non-Bengalis, the 65-year-old’s victory could well go down as one of the Trinamool’s greatest victories. Congress.

Those who understand Bengal politics could argue that the former BJP state president was forced out of his comfort zone and compete in unfamiliar territory, but it was also not a very familiar zone for Azad.

Azad won back-to-back elections for the BJP in Darbhanga in Bihar before his open feud with the late Arun Jaitley over alleged corruption in the Delhi administration and the District Cricket Association (DDCA) led him to switch to the Congress.

If the presence of his close friend Kapil Dev was a boost during his short but mostly uneventful international career, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek definitely gave his political career a second lease of life.

There may be less skill but more providence, but the World Cup-winning maverick, a very authoritarian former Delhi Ranji captain, a verbose national selector and a sworn detractor of Jaitley, Azad has always known how to remain a newsmaker .

Son of former CM of Bihar, the late Bhagwat Jha Azad, he studied at the famous Modern School on Barakhamba Road in Delhi and was a sports quota student at the prestigious St Stephens College, which he topped with distinction.

Azad has always been a nonconformist. During the finals between Hindu College and Stephen’s on the latter’s ground, students thronged to watch the muscular batsman hit towering sixes with his English willow Gray Nicolls, which was a novelty in the days of the License Raj.

Azad, historian Ramachandra Guha and publicist Piyush Pandey were all contemporaries in college cricket, whose later careers took off in different directions.

Some of Azad’s critics would always privately claim that any cricket he played for India was due to his closeness to Kapil Dev.

While allegations of nepotism are a debatable topic, there is no doubt that Azad was one of the most powerful Delhi captains of his time, who would never shy away from a fight when the team on the other side was Mumbai.

Furthermore, he was forced to face domestic cricket and the killer of off-spin bowlers.

Many believe he was one of the first Indian batsmen in domestic cricket who could actually read the ‘doosra’ thrown by off-spinners in the early to mid-80s when even the bowlers themselves didn’t know what it was.

The late Bishan Singh Bedi adored him and they remained close until the former breathed his last.

Together, they frequently issued missives against the functioning of the DDCA, often attacking Jaitley directly on issues ranging from staff selection to administrative functioning.

Azad, especially in Delhi cricket, has always polarized opinions.

Some described him as a straight-talking man, to others he was an opportunist, but one thing is certain: no one could ever ignore him.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)