Kirti Azad

Kirtivardhan (Kirti) Azad was a former Indian cricketer and was part of the squad that won the 1983 CWC. He is remembered for his swashbuckling style of batting and for his quick off breaks. His international career was pretty much a stop-start affair which made for only an occasional break through to the national team. Even though his international career spanned six years, he played only seven Tests and 25 ODI's for the country.

He was a surprise choice to the team for the tour of Australia and New Zealand back in 1980-81 and made his debut in a Test match at Wellington. Success wasn't very forthcoming though and as a result of this he was dropped but was recalled to the squad for the 1983 World Cup. Azad played a major hand in the semi-finals of that World Cup against England where he skittled their famed middle-order. This also included getting the danger man Ian Botham bowled.

Another noteworthy innings was an exhibition match again arch-rivals Pakistan in 1983 at Delhi where Pakistan batted first and put up 197/3. Azad took all three wickets and returned with the bat to score a breezy 71 to guide India to a one run win.

He was also a great all-rounder for the Delhi Ranji team scoring 4867 runs at an average of 47.72 with his best score being 215 against Himachal Pradesh in 1985-86. Following his playing days, he attempted to get into broadcasting in English for television but couldn't quite make it. He followed his father into politics and was elected to parliament.