Solly Adam's heart beats for Asian cricketers

Manchester:  Talk to Indian cricketers of yore who played in the County Championship or leagues in the United Kingdom, and a vast majority will have something great to say about Suleman Adam, popularly known as Solly Adam.

“Solly bhai is the reason why I could play County cricket,” “Solly bhai took care of us like we were his family,” “I struggled to find a place to stay, and Solly bhai accommodated me,”… the tributes keep pouring in from legends like Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, and even from superstars from across the border like Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, Abdul Qadir and Iqbal Qasim.

Today, Indian cricketers may not find English cricket appealing as most national-level cricketers make a decent living due to the strong domestic structure and high-rewarding IPL, but there was a time when making a trip to the UK was necessary for a majority of them.

Cricket in England took place during the home off-season, and Indians and Pakistanis, who were largely free then when their countries didn’t play here, hoped to find a team to further their cricketing education. 

It wasn’t difficult for the established names, but for a lot of others who aspired to play Tier 2 or Tier 3 cricket during the weekend to earn some extra pounds, they needed an ‘agent’ who could facilitate that. Also, playing in England boosted their resume, and performances here enhanced their chances of a national call-up too. And Solly, whose family migrated to the UK in the late 1960s, did that selflessly, instrumental in getting over 400 Asian cricketers in play in the leagues here without expecting or taking a quid in return.

“The journey started with Rahul Mankad,” Solly tells DH at his sports store in Dewsbury, a town in Yorkshire which is an hour’s drive from Manchester. “Rahul came first here and he was playing for Clark Eaton. So, I went to meet him and invited him over to my place. During dinner, he said he had a lot of his friends like Karsan Ghavri, Suru Nayak and Vijay Mohanraj who would like to come and play in England and asked if I could fix them up at some clubs. So I scouted around and fixed those guys for various teams as in those days, there were no restrictions on the number of players in each team. Next year, I bought four more players from India and the numbers just kept adding up over time,” said Solly, who still runs the petrol bunk started in the early 1970s where legends like Laxman worked during their stay in the UK.  

Amongst the biggest names, and a history-making one, Adam brought to these shores was Tendulkar, the first player not born in Yorkshire to represent the county, in 1992. Till the 19-year-old Tendulkar’s arrival then, Yorkshire had a strict policy of selecting players only from the county, and Adam had to move mountains to get the club to change its hard-nosed policy.

“I met Sachin during my son’s wedding in 1990 and asked him if he wanted to play league cricket in the UK. He said he didn’t mind. I first brought Vinod Kambli, who was playing for 25 pounds a week. Sachin wanted 100 pounds. At that time, Yorkshire changed their rules and signed an Australian, but he pulled out. So I went to the Yorkshire committee and said if they could sign an Australian, why not an Indian or Pakistani? We had a lot of arguments, and I had to keep travelling from Dewsbury to Leeds. Eventually, they agreed and asked me who I recommended. I instantly said Sachin Tendulkar.

“I rang Sachin, and he refused. Then I spoke to Sunil (Gavaskar), who was in Australia, where Sachin was playing. Even the Australians were enamoured by Sachin because Bradman said watching a young Sachin bat reminded him of himself. That news was carried big even in all the newspapers here in the UK, and interest grew (by then, Tendulkar had scored his maiden Test century here and saved the game). After I spoke to Sunil, he spoke to Sachin, and Sachin rang me up saying, ‘Solly bhai, I’m coming.’ He was the first Asian to come here.”

What endeared Solly, which has been chronicled in the book “Solly Adam: Beyond Boundaries” by Vara Vantapati, to everyone who met him was his hospitality and humbleness. Although he was a businessman, he never expected a penny from the players for getting deals with county clubs. For many from modest backgrounds who found the city and language hard to tackle, he provided food and accommodation. During weekdays, the players returned the favour by working in his petrol bunks, an organic development.

Solly Adam poses with the bats used by Sachin Tendulkar at his shop in Dewsbury. DH PHOTO/ SIDNEY KIRAN