It came as a huge shock to me. Abdul Qadir was a very dear personal friend of mine. Qadir, another friend Tanveer Mohammed in London, and I were a troika and would be in touch regularly. We would speak with each other often. Just the day before, Tanveer called me from London and told me he was chatting with Qadir for 50 minutes. He mentioned his conversation with Qadir. In fact, I got to know of his demise a bit earlier than the rest when Tanveer called. I was shocked. He was just 62, fit and fine.
The last time I met him was in 2018, ahead of the India-Pakistan clash in the Asia Cup where we both were invited as guest speakers on a news channel's show. We spent all our time together and had a great time, too. We were in Dubai for three days and most of our chatter was around cricket in India and Pakistan. He mentioned how the cricket structure was better in India and what needed to be done in Pakistan cricket to make it better than what it is now. He did not have any bad habit—even when we were together, he would be disciplined with his food and was almost a teetotaler.
I have played against Qadir in the 1982-83 series in Pakistan. We went into the series knowing he had a huge reputation. Qadir could fox the batsmen by turning the ball either ways, but we Indians are good at playing against spin. So, we were not so overawed by him.
Nevertheless, he was a great spinner—his records speak for himself. I would rate him and Shane Warne as the two greatest exponents of leg spin and in Asia, without a doubt, he was the best ever.
Apart from being a great bowler, he was also a very good person. He always wanted to give back to cricket. He was also a very plain speaking person and it is not easy to survive in Pakistan cricket if you are one. He would speak his mind even in front of his skipper Imran Khan, who would listen to him.
In those days, Qadir would get a bit upset about the ball being shiny on one side and rough on the other—to help reverse swing it. But despite that, he would still be effective enough to get the wickets.
—As told to Neeru Bhatia
