Abdul Qadir

Cricket has Abdul Qadir to thank for keeping wristspin alive through the late 1970s and '80s. He did it with style, too. Blessed with a fast bowler's temperament and fire, he surrounded his craft with mystique. Before the 1982 tour to England, captain Imran Khan asked him to grow a French beard to enhance the aura and it worked: England were his favourite victims through his career, responsible for his international breakthrough in 1977-78 as well as his finest hours, at The Oval in 1987 and in the home series later that year, where he took 30 wickets in three Tests, including the best bowling in an innings by a Pakistani, 9 for 56, in Lahore. Graham Gooch, who faced him that day, said Qadir was even finer than Shane Warne, to whom he passed on the candle.

Qadir's action was a wonderfully extravagant routine, and he admitted more than once that it was contrived as a spectacle to distract batters. Variety was the key; it was said he had six different deliveries per over. Like with Andy Roberts' bouncer, Qadir was said to have two different googlies. His flipper was often equally lethal, though much often depended not on his ability but on mood.

Rarely was the mood right against India, whose batters were largely untroubled by him. On Pakistan's historic 1986-87 tour, when they won a series in India for the first time, Qadir was largely ineffective for four Tests before being dropped for the last, in which Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed, orthodox spinners both, led Pakistan to victory. But for every India, there was a West Indies and that Pakistan were able to compete with the era's most frighteningly dominant team without losing a series to them in the mid-'80s was largely down to Qadir's successes against them.

His appetite for the fight could not be questioned and it often came out in his batting. He played a few combative Test innings and some vital ODI ones, once taking 16 off Courtney Walsh's last over to win a World Cup game.

Qadir faded away from the scene in the early '90s with the emergence of Mushtaq Ahmed, and played his last ODI in 1993. After that he ran a private academy near Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. His four sons followed him into the game with varying degrees of success, but his role in Mushtaq's rise and, to a lesser extent, that of Danish Kaneria, should not be overlooked.

In November 2008, Qadir was appointed Pakistan's chief selector, but he resigned after a little over six months in the job. He died of a heart attack a few days short of his 64th birthday in Lahore.