Narendra Hirwani Biography 
Narendra Hirwani is a former cricketer associated with Indian team, who has played several international matches. He delivered an outstanding blowing performance in his debut cricket match at the age of 18. His magical spells against world’s top team in cricket in the 1980s, West Indies in the final Test of the series at Chennai in 1988 made him a star overnight. He took 16 wickets (8-61 & 8-75) for 136 runs on his Test debut against Chennai, which helped India to level the series and the record still stands after 28 years. He bet Bob Massie's 16-year-old record by just one run. When he took 8 wickets in the first innings, he became the fourth cricketer to take eight wickets in an innings on debut.
Hirwani, the leg spin bowler of late 1980s was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh in 1968. His father was a businessman man who owned a brick factory. During his teens he moved to Indore, where he got coaching from Sanjay Jagdale. Hirwani played for Madhya Pradesh and he made his first class cricket debut at the age of 16. In the debut match itself he exhibited his great talent by taking 5 wickets in the first innings. Since then he delivered some outstanding performances for his state team which earned him a berth in Indian cricket team.
23 wickets in an under-19 three Test series against Australia, followed by a six-wicket spell against West Indies in an India U-25 tour in the second test gave him selection to Indian team. He made an outstanding performance in his debut international test match against West Indies - a record still remains to be broken. However couldn’t repeat the same magic later, though able to claim two more 50 wickets gain in an innings. He took 66 wickets from 17 test matches and 23 wickets from 18 ODI. He retired from all forms of cricket in 1996 and later took the job of a coach.
The cricket remembers his wicket against Viv Richards in the debut innings to be most memorable. It was on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti. He surprised the Windies batsmen with his variations in the debut match and he was later personally greeted by many Indian celebrities including Bollywood stars like Jayaprada and Dharmendra.
Published: N/A
Updated: April 09, 2016
