Not only was Najam Hussain a saviour for the teams he represented on the field with his all-round skills, he proved a good Samaritan off it as well.

Even as he was scoring tons of runs and taking wickets on the field, the devout man wouldn’t shy away from lending a helping hand to the needy or distributing alms at a nearby dargah during lunch on match days.

“The holy Quran teaches you to help the needy and that’s what I tried to do. It gave me great joy to go to a nearby dargah and do whatever I could to poor people,” says the 74-year-old with 1,375 runs and 80 wickets from 41 first-class (Ranji Trophy) outings. His former state mates believe Hussain was someone who maximized his talent. “He was no novice with the bat, would chip in with the ball and was an astute fielder as well,” says K R Rajagopal.

Former Hyderabad offie V Ramnarayan vividly recalls Hussain’s match-winning nine-wicket haul for Jolly Rovers in a Buchi Babu game back in the 1960s. “It was a game against Hyderabad and they were cruising. Suddenly, it rained. I left for home and the next day I came to know from the newspapers that Hussain had bowled Jolly Rovers to an emphatic win with his offspin,” recalls Ramnarayan.

Interestingly , Ramnarayan, in his book, describes Hussain’s bowling as `poi’ (false or non-existent in Tamil), but he takes it in his stride. “It’s all in good humour. Having said that, if I wasn’t good enough I wouldn’t have taken a single wicket at the first-class level,” says Hussain.

Belliappa feels Hussain fit the term `team man’ to the T. “He would always put the team above everything else. He would be ready to bat anywhere in the batting order and give his best whenever given the ball. As a captain, I couldn’t have asked for more,” notes P K Belliappa, before adding, “Hussain may have been a great player, but he was a dogooder and that’s what made him such an enduring hu man being.”

Hussain says the strong bonding in the state side is something he will always cherish.”I represented Jolly Rov ers and the state side at a time when they were the strongest. To have been part of a side that had stalwarts such as Rajagopal, Kalyanasundaram, Belliappa was sheer joy ,” notes Hussain, who is currently based in Bengaluru.

(A weekly column on famous sports personalities whose first playing filed was Chennai and its neighbourhood)

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Chennai / by Prasad R S, TNN / August 29th, 2015