Nazir Ali Biography 
Nazir Ali was a cricketer who played for India before partition and moved to Pakistan after that. He played two test matches for India in the pre-independent period. He was the younger brother of former Indian cricketer batsman, Wazir Ali. Both these players left India in 1947. His nephew (Wazir Ali’s son) Khalid Wazir has played a few test matches for team Pakistan. The siblings, Nazir Ali and Wazir Ali belonged to the early phase of Indian cricket during the pre-independent period. In fact both of them got opportunity to appear in the Indian squad to tour England which played the first test series in the history of Indian cricket. Nazir was an all-rounder to his team.
Syed Nazir Ali was born in Jullundur (now Jalandhar) of Punjab in British India. He was a patron of Maharaja of Patiala who sent him to England to study electrical engineering. Ali was an attacking right-handed batsman. He was also a fast-medium bowler and a good fielder in fields. He was active in domestic cricket since mid-1920s. During MCC’s tour to India during 1926/27, his performance impressed MCC captain Arthur Gilligan, and later invited him to play for Sussex. While doing his Engineering graduation in England, he played for Sussex. After completion of course he returned to India after 4 years and continued his cricket career in India.
His first international test scores are not encouraging. He scored 13 and 6 in his maiden test match in 1932, India’s first tour and test debut in England. He was injured during his second innings. But he scored 1020 runs and took 23 wickets in the tour. He played one more test match against England at Chennai. His outstanding innings of 52 when India made a team total of just 66 runs against Yorkshire is the most memorable innings of his career. After moving to Pakistan, he settled in Lahore. He died in 1975.
Published: N/A
Updated: June 26, 2016
