On November 15, 1989, 4 younger cricketers walked onto the Nationwide Stadium in Karachi to start their Check careers. One was a 16-year-old Indian whose identify would ultimately change into inseparable from the game itself. One other was an 18-year-old Pakistani quick bowler destined to change into probably the most feared exponents of reverse swing the sport had seen.
Sachin Tendulkar would end with 200 Assessments and 15,921 runs. Waqar Younis would play 87 Assessments, take 373 wickets and change into a Pakistani nice. But that Karachi match additionally contained two careers on the reverse finish of cricket’s unforgiving spectrum. The opposite Pakistani debutant, Shahid Saeed, by no means performed one other Check. Neither did one in every of India’s new faces.
For the Indian quick bowler, that single look was notably tough to reconcile with what had come instantly earlier than it. He had stormed by means of home cricket, compelled his means into competition inside one season and impressed once more on the tour of Pakistan. At 21, there was little cause to think about that the primary Check cap would even be the final. His identify was Salil Ankola.
A hat-trick, two six-fors and an India call-up
Ankola’s ascent had been remarkably speedy. The fitting-arm quick bowler made his first-class debut for Maharashtra within the 1988-89 season and introduced himself spectacularly in opposition to Gujarat. He scored 43 and took six wickets in an innings, with a hat-trick included within the haul. There was no lengthy settling-in interval. Towards Baroda quickly afterwards, Ankola took one other six-wicket haul, returning 6/51. By the top of his first season, he had collected 27 wickets at a median of 20.18, with three five-wicket hauls.
For a younger Indian quick bowler within the late Eighties, these numbers have been tough to disregard. Ankola was picked for India’s formidable tour of Pakistan in 1989, the place the hosts had Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and the rising Waqar ready. Even earlier than the Assessments started, Ankola strengthened his case. In a tour match in opposition to BCCP Patron’s XI, he took 6/77 within the first innings and added one other two wickets within the second. India subsequently handed him his Check debut in Karachi.
That match is remembered overwhelmingly for Tendulkar and Waqar, however Ankola didn’t go away it wicketless. His first Check sufferer was Saleem Malik, caught by Mohammad Azharuddin for 36. In Pakistan’s second innings, he dismissed wicketkeeper Saleem Yousuf and completed his debut with two wickets. They might stay the one two Check wickets he ever took.
One Check turned a complete Check profession
Ankola suffered an harm after the Karachi Check and missed the rest of the four-match sequence. What initially regarded like an interruption in the end turned one thing much more consequential: regardless of later being round India’s plans and squads, one other Check look by no means arrived. His worldwide profession was not fully over. Ankola made his ODI debut on the identical Pakistan tour and would return to the limited-overs aspect intermittently over the subsequent a number of years.
There have been glimpses of what India had first seen in him. Towards South Africa within the 1993 Hero Cup, Ankola took 3/33 at Mohali, the most effective figures of his ODI profession. He performed 4 ODIs on India’s tour of New Zealand in 1994 and ultimately earned choice for the 1996 World Cup on residence soil. But even the World Cup alternative got here with a well-known frustration. Ankola performed solely as soon as within the match, in opposition to eventual champions Sri Lanka in Delhi. He bowled 5 overs for 28 with out taking a wicket as Sri Lanka chased India’s 271 with appreciable consolation.
His ODI profession stretched till February 1997, but it surely amounted to solely 20 matches unfold throughout greater than seven years. He took 13 wickets at 47.30. The numbers have been a stark distinction to a home profession during which Ankola remained a much more substantial bowler.
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181 wickets, however accidents stored returning
Throughout 54 first-class matches, Ankola took 181 wickets at a median under 26, together with eight five-wicket hauls. His finest innings figures have been 6/47. However accidents turned a recurring adversary. Ankola labored with former England quick bowler Frank Tyson, who was concerned with Mumbai’s fast-bowling programme, and altered his motion and shortened his run-up in an try to put much less pressure on his physique whereas enhancing his management.
There have been comebacks, picks and renewed hopes, however by no means a sustained run for India. In an period during which Javagal Srinath established himself as India’s premier quick bowler and the likes of Manoj Prabhakar, Venkatesh Prasad and others competed for locations, Ankola remained on the margins.
By 1997, his enjoying profession was successfully completed. A bone tumour on his shin contributed to his untimely exit from cricket at simply 28, an awfully early finish for somebody whose first-class profession had begun with such drive. Ankola subsequently travelled down a path few Indian internationals have taken. He entered appearing, showing in tv serials and movies, earlier than ultimately returning to cricket in administrative roles. He turned Mumbai’s chief selector and later served on India’s senior males’s nationwide choice committee.
Extra not too long ago, Ankola has spoken brazenly about one other tough battle away from cricket. He underwent remedy for extreme despair at a psychological well being care centre close to Pune in 2026, having struggled following the dying of his mom and different private difficulties. In an interview with HT Metropolis in July, Ankola stated the remedy had helped him significantly and that he was now “significantly better and at peace”. He additionally urged folks battling despair to hunt skilled assist fairly than permit the stigma surrounding psychological well being to forestall them from talking about it.
But his cricketing story will endlessly return to Karachi. On the identical November morning, Tendulkar, Waqar and Ankola have been all worldwide cricketers for the primary time. No person standing on the Nationwide Stadium might have recognized the place their careers would lead. Tendulkar would play Check cricket for one more 24 years. Waqar would acquire a whole lot of wickets and terrorise a technology of batters. Ankola took two wickets in that match, walked away injured and by no means wore India’s Check cap once more.
Typically the gap between a historic debut and a forgotten profession just isn’t measured in years. For Salil Ankola, it was measured in a single Check.
