Dilip Doshi turns 75 with elegance!

Appreciating the cricketing exploits and special interests of the former India left-arm spinner on his 75th birthday today

Dilip Doshi turns 75 today. He is one Indian cricketer who we ought to appreciate more. For, he was true to his craft, put a lot of thought into his cricket and, above all, was successful to the point that the greatest cricketer ever born “wondered like so many others, why Dilip did not play more for his country because he was one of the finest bowlers in the world in his prime.” Yes, that’s what Sir Garfield Sobers wrote in Doshi’s 1991 autobiography Spin Punch.

When Doshi made his debut for India at 31, after years of domestic cricket toil, he had big boots to fill. It was the September of 1979, and he had to step in for Bishan Singh Bedi, who was part of the 1979 Oval Test which India nearly won, but was not in the next one India played — against the Australians at Chennai a few days later.

Doshi’s Test debut was rewarding—a six-wicket haul in the first innings even as the visiting Australian team braved the Chennai heat to pile up 390—with centuries from Allan Border and captain Kim Hughes.

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Doshi played 13 Tests in that 1979-80 home season and ended it with 46 wickets, playing a good role in the series wins over Australia and Pakistan.
His first overseas series—Australia in 1980-81—was fruitful too. After the big loss in Sydney, India put up a better show in Adelaide, where the game ended in a tense draw. Sandeep Patil was the batting hero with a first innings 174, but Doshi’s six wickets in the game included Greg Chappell in both innings.

Richie Benaud was certainly impressed and wrote in an Australian Cricket Board publication for the 1980-81 season: “Doshi did it so well on this occasion in Adelaide that, by the time the fourth day was over, he had bowled 28 overs, 10 maidens and taken 3-27, an outstanding performance from one of the best finger-spinners in the world today. There was just enough spin in the pitch for Doshi, plus a little uneven bounce, and none of the Australian batsmen, not even skipper Greg Chappell nor vice-captain Kim Hughes, who made 52 and 53 not out respectively on this fourth day, were able to get after him.”

Benaud’s fellow Channel Nine commentator Ian Chappell was moved to predict that Doshi would trouble his brother Greg in the next Test at Melbourne. However, it was Karsan Ghavri who sent the Australian captain back in both innings. 

Doshi played the Melbourne Test with a broken toe on his left foot, an injury he suffered during the Victoria v Indians game at Geelong before the series finale at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  

Determined to be part of the team in Melbourne, Doshi revealed in his book that he sought the services of Dr Bill Guilliano, who was the physio of the Melbourne Football Club. Doshi’s spin partner Shivlal Yadav too was injured - a hairline toe fracture. Kapil Dev’s leg injury meant there were three injured players in the playing XI. Yet, they all played their part in clinching one of the most memorable of overseas Test wins.

Doshi claimed three in Australia’s first innings and had two in the second. He opened the bowling with Kapil Dev. Australian great Bill O’Reilly sitting in the press box was most impressed. “Doshi has been absolutely outstanding. Taking the new ball against all precept, he turned our [Australian] top-line batsmen into timid postulance as they tried unsuccessfully to score runs quickly at a critical stage,” wrote the man, who Sir Don Bradman called the greatest spinner of his time, in the Sydney Morning Herald. Indeed, it was a courageous show as well.

When I spoke to Doshi yesterday and asked him about his greatest moment, he pointed to the occasions when India won in both forms of the game and there were several. But Melbourne 1981 did come up. 

Twenty-two scalps in the 1981-82 home contest against England was followed by 13 in three Tests during the English summer of 1982. The 1982-83 tour of Pakistan was where he was dropped for the first time and subsequently he didn’t make the tour party for the series in the Caribbean. His last Test was the Bangalore game against Zaheer Abbas’s 1983-84 tourists.

I followed a bit of Doshi’s career as a teenager and, along with those fifers which constituted the 114 Test wickets in 33 Tests, I remember some of those 14 ducks. Despite those, Doshi could be gritty and stubborn with bat in hand.

He hung around for over an hour for his 48-ball 20 when Pakistan had reduced India to 117 for nine, keeping Ghavri (45 not out) company and helping India to end up with 162.

Another proud moment as a batsman for Doshi would be his 61-minute stay battling a swift Imran Khan in the Kolkata Test of that series.

An assessment of Doshi’s cricket career would be incomplete if there is no mention of his county stints with Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire. And of course, Ranji Trophy cricket for Bengal and Saurashtra. He has played club cricket in Mumbai as well. 

Doshi today is a successful entrepreneur who divides his time between Mumbai and London. His friendship with members of The Rolling Stones is well known and the number of their concerts he has attended is countless.

One look at him and you’ll realise he values his fitness. Never a day goes by without his yoga and pilates sessions and he has been vegan for more than a decade.

Impeccable in his appearance, Doshi knows what it takes to be well attired.  In many ways, Dilip Rasiklal Doshi is the quintessential complete man; a good soul too.

mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello

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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper

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