Over the last three decades the size of Hyderabad has expanded massively but the soul of the city has shrunk in inverse proportion, feels former Hyderabad cricketer Khalid Abdul Qaiyum who represented Hyderabad in the Ranji trophy for 14 years before he went off to the USA in 1990.
“Now the people of the city are very keen to make money. But they have become more self-centered. They care less for the rest of humanity. The pursuit of wealth is the only thing that matters. The bonhomie and camaraderie that I had seen in my youth, has disappeared from the ambience of the twin cities,” he said.
Khalid has returned to Hyderabad for an extended stay to set up a cricket coaching centre named K & S Residential Academy at CBR ground in Gollur near Shamshabad along with another former Ranji trophy player Salamath Ali Khan. Before leaving for the USA, Khalid had already trained several youngsters at the All Saints school premises who later played in the Ranji trophy. The new academy will have all the latest facilities and the enterprising duo of Khalid and Salamath hope to produce more top level cricketers.
Khalid belonged to the golden period of Hyderabad cricket of the 1980s. He made his debut in 1976 in the Ranji trophy. He was a sound middle order batsman and a reliable bowler. His best moment was when he won the Ranji trophy as a member of the Hyderabad team in the 1986-1987 season. And his most cherished knock was the century that he scored for Hyderabad against the Rest of India team in the Irani Trophy in the same year. That was the season, when under the leadership of Hyderabad’s most successful captain M. V. Narasimha (Bobby) Rao, Hyderabad won the Ranji as well as Irani trophy tournaments.
In 1990 Khalid left his hometown and settled in Atlanta in the USA where he worked in the IT sector. There he also coached about 100 boys who were interested in cricket. Mostly these boys were from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Australian and English backgrounds. So as a coach Khalid has had a huge amount of experience.
The way things are being done in Hyderabad has left him disappointed. “This is not the Hyderabad that I used to know in my student life. People were caring and social life was easy going. There was a sense of pride in being a Hyderabadi. We were different and there was a feeling of harmony with nature. Life in Hyderabad was not a rat race. We had time to sit and chat endlessly in Irani hotels over a cup of tea. But now many of those famous old cafes have been demolished. They have been replaced by posh shopping malls. Life has become very fast paced and centered on money. Nobody has time for friends like we used to have,” said Khalid.
“Hyderabad cricket too has taken a turn for the worse. Although I live in the USA, I get news of what is happening in my home town. I have heard that these days players can buy a place in Hyderabad’s teams — right from the age group tournaments to senior level Ranji trophy. This was unimaginable during my time. Even if someone wanted to do it, he would not have the money. When I started playing for Hyderabad in 1976, we were paid Rs 50 per match. When I left the game in 1990 we used to get Rs 500 per match. I am extremely sad that my beloved Hyderabad has degenerated to this level. We need a top-to-bottom overhaul of the system to root out the evil and restore the old glory of Hyderabad,” concluded Khalid.
“I feel like I played all right … I don’t think I played that well,” Alex Scott says, doing himself something of a disservice as the Bristol City midfielder reflects on the night Manchester City came to town. A clip of Scott gliding into the box and away from Julián Álvarez and Riyad Mahrez and bursting between Kevin De Bruyne and Rico Lewis went viral. His modesty is indicative of his endearing personality and the standards he has set himself. “I wanted to show what I’ve been doing the past two years in the Championship against one of the best teams in the world.”
What the 19-year-old has been doing this season has earned him the English Football League young player of the year award, previously won by Brennan Johnson, Ollie Watkins and Jude Bellingham, an opponent in Scott’s youth days at Southampton and a source of inspiration. “I played against Jude a few times,” he says. “I remember playing in tournaments against Harvey Elliott quite a bit and Jamal Musiala, now of Bayern Munich, because we used to play Chelsea all the time. Players like Jude and Jamal who have gone on to the highest level possible, it gives motivation for young lads like myself who have played against them and seen how good they were as kids.”
Alex Scott with his EFL young player of the year award last Sunday. Photograph: Andrew Fosker/Shutterstock
Pep Guardiola gushed and Jack Grealish, one of Scott’s idols, was equally complimentary. Grealish later called Scott a “top, top talent” in a social media post. “I was speaking to him a little bit after the game and managed to get his shirt, so it was a special night all round,” Scott says. “To get the recognition from someone like him, it did mean a lot. He is friends with Andi [Weimann], who knows him from when they were at Villa together. I’m thankful to Andi for pulling me over to chat because I was a bit nervous.”
Scott’s teammate and flatmate, the striker Tommy Conway, another Bristol City youngster to shine this season, got Erling Haaland’s shirt. Scott was given the moniker the “Guernsey Grealish” because he also wears his socks and shin pads low. The versatile Scott – he has excelled as a wing-back, winger and at the base and tip of midfield – is the most-fouled player in the Championship this season. Sunderland’s Luke O’Nien resorted to drastic measures to stop him in February, jumping on Scott for an impromptu piggyback on halfway.
Scott laughs in the boardroom at Bristol City’s sleek training base and is at ease as he discusses everything from growing up on the Channel Islands and joining Guernsey FC for pre-season at 15 to winning the Under-19 European Championship with England and studying clips of Grealish, Bellingham and Frenkie de Jong. “That’s the level I want to be playing at one day,” he says. “I look at players with a similar playing style to me in terms of dribbling and breaking lines. You can watch all the clips you want but if you don’t put the work in on the grass then you’re not going to progress. I’m doing extras when I can and trying things at training that I know I need to work on, for example shooting, dribbling and passing on my left foot.”
Scott, who made his 100th senior appearance last weekend and became Guernsey’s youngest-ever player when making his debut against Haywards Heath Town aged 16 in September 2019, speaks with striking maturity.He joined Bristol City from Guernsey on a free three months later, after scoring a perfect hat-trick in a trial against Yate Town. He was fast-tracked to the first team and Scott’s ability to carve open defences with a killer pass or surging run have made him a fans’ favourite from virtually the moment Nigel Pearson handed him his debut aged 17. Pearson is adamant Scott will play for England’s senior side.
Even the way Scott talks about tactical fouls, while discussing playing in a deeper midfield role for his country, belies his years. “Sometimes it needs a player to almost hit someone a little bit and go through a player, in the nicest way possible. If you want to be a top midfielder who can play holding midfield, No 8 or a No 10, you need to have all those parts of your game.” Scott has always had a degree of bite. “I can get a bit feisty in a game if I need to. I think if you ask my parents they will say the same thing about when I was a young lad playing at home.”
Alex Scott in action for Bristol City against West Brom this season. Photograph: David Davies/PA
Scott spent almost five years at Southampton and a season at Bournemouth. Then came a big decision and frank conversations with his parents, Steph and Noel. “My mum and dad knew I wasn’t happy playing,” Scott says. “They sat me down and said: ‘Bournemouth want you go to back, but do you want to do it?’ It was upsetting my mum a lot because she knew I wasn’t happy. When I got released from Southampton, I gave up a little bit, I lost interest a bit. From the age of eight to 13, I never really had a social life in Guernsey. I’d go to school on a Friday, fly to Southampton, Sunday I’d fly home and then I’d be at school again. I never really had a chance to enjoy my life as a 13-year-old kid, to go out and see my friends and play with them.
“You know what dads are like, they want you to play. But he knew I wasn’t happy. I told him straight and said: ‘I just want to play in Guernsey.’ He was fine with that and that took a bit of weight off my shoulders because it felt at times like I was almost playing for him a little bit when I was going over. I knew I hated it when I was flying over every weekend but I didn’t want to upset my dad or anything.”
His love for the game has certainly returned. “Monday Night Football, Champions League, Friday nights – it is on at all times in the household,” he says, smiling. “We’re either watching something on the telly or playing two-touch on the balcony.” He occasionally plays Xbox with his friends and elder brother, Callum. “Other than that, I’ll speak with my parents, the normal 19-year-old life, really.”
Scott never expected to be in this position. “I remember being in food tech at school, with my friends, speaking about these young players that were coming through and playing at the highest stage: Karamoko Dembélé, Louie Barry, players like that. Two years later, my first England [Under-18s] squad [in March 2021], I’m playing with those players and my friends are texting me like: ‘What are they actually like? What are they like off the pitch? How good are they?’
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“Alfie Devine, who I now play with for England [Under-20s], is probably one of my closest mates. Being a Spurs fan I remember when he scored against Marine at 16. I was watching that with my dad at home and thinking: ‘He’s going to be the next one to come through at Spurs.’ Now I’m best mates with him at England level. That in itself is surreal for me.”
Now he is the subject of interest from the Premier League’s elite. Scott has told his mum, who has signed up to receive Bristol City notifications on Twitter, to treat transfer talk with caution. “My friends ask me: ‘Are you going here? Are you going here?’ I just ignore them, basically.”
Alex Scott (third left) and his England Under-20 teammates before last month’s friendly against France in Spain. Photograph: Fran Santiago/The FA/Getty Images
Many Bristol City supporters are resigned to Saturday’s home match against Burnley being Scott’s last at Ashton Gate. His immediate focus, he says, is on making the England squad for May’s Under-20 World Cup or June’s Under-21 European Championship. Is the 2026 World Cup on his radar? “What’s that, three years from now … I’ll be 22. Why not?”
A little more than three years on from Isthmian League Division One South East trips with Guernsey to Sittingbourne and Cray Valley Paper Mills, where he played in front of a crowd of 56, Scott is determined to continue his impressive trajectory. “It has been a bit of a whirlwind few years,” he says. “I don’t really want to look back on how it’s gone, I just want to keep going.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Here it is then: Total Erling. Wherever this current iteration of Manchester City may end up, this was a night when the texture of Pep Guardiola’s team seemed to shift decisively, to take on new forms and new shapes.
Erling Haaland came to the Emirates Stadium with 25 Premier League goals this season. He left with 26, and with a sense, too, of finding his own new gears, of leading City’s attack in every moment of the game rather than wandering around finishing its sentences.
Haaland was a scalpel as well as a bludgeon. He ran through and indeed over the red shirts; but also moved sweetly and cleverly off the ball, producing a performance of all-round central attacking craft in the biggest game of the Premier League season to date.
By the end City were top of the league on goal difference; which is of course Haaland-difference these days. It is strange to think how recently this looked like a long-term pursuit for Pep Guardiola’s team. That lead is now eaten away. The skinny-legged figure haring along in the rear-view mirror, fists cleaving the air, has become a pounding presence, right there at the back window, all set to start wrenching open the rear door, grasping for the wheel, muttering about culture and process and being so, so happy.
More worrying for the rest of the field, there was a completeness to this performance. Arsenal were City’s match in the first half. By the end, as the blue shirts drove the game into painful spaces, as Haaland turned and rolled in City’s third goal in a 3-1 victory there was a sense of ignition. Arsenal still have a game in hand. But Haaland in particular looks like a man ready to devour the season from here.
The Emirates had been a fevered place at kick-off. Mikel Arteta picked a slightly awkward looking team, reprising his favoured big game Takehiro Tomiyasu gambit on the right. In the other corner Pep just went big. The front of City’s team was five sparkly midfielders plus Haaland. Maybe this is what happens when you no longer care if anyone raises an eyebrow at your accounts. Yep. This is us. Behold our suitcase of gold.
Guardiola came here dressed for business, albeit only if your business is middle-aged techno music producer who lives in a house called The Octagon. But he was utterly engaged here, out on his white line feeding on the energy. There has been a slight mania about Pep’s us-and-them take on City’s financial charges, the instant tribalism, the Darwinist sense of impunity. We didn’t break the rules. But even if we did, there is no right and wrong here: just our interests and their interests. It feels like cynical, mob-level leadership.
But it is an obvious gambit, too, and a winning one. This is a club that seems to feel comfortable being cast as the villain, albeit not as a classic villain. The self-image here is more antihero, more Hans Gruber in Die Hard: charming, successful, and convinced right up to the final wide-eyed reckoning that they are in fact the hero of this movie; that this is all a glorious underdog tale.
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In Haaland they have the perfect instrument of vengeance, in terms of style and presence, but also in the deeper gears of his attacking movements now. Something has clicked in the past two games. As they had against Aston Villa, City geared their possession game towards that central attacking point, still keeping the ball but looking for quick vertical passes, always with an eye on those startlingly sudden forward runs.
Two minutes in, City’s chief attacking threat could be seen wading through two players out on the right touchline: moving with fearsome speed, but also nimble enough to skip left and right keeping the ball. This is Haaland’s most basic superpower, the physique of a 6ft 5in human with the scaled-up fibres of a normal sized elite athlete.
A bit later he got away from Tomiyasu and might have nicked the ball in at the back post. It is easy to be deceived by Haaland’s appearance, to see only a kind of Nordic goal-terminator. But this was cute, smart movement. He’s elusive in those spaces. Exactly how isn’t clear. But he is.
The opening goal of this game came from a moment of Haaland hustle, jumping with William Saliba and forcing a deflected header that left Tomiyasu running back towards goal. His left-footed backpass was scuffed horribly into the path of Kevin De Bruyne, who had a chance to score from that position, but not an easy one. The finish was just sublime, whipped instantly over Aaron Ramsdale, a moment of beautifully cruel precision.
Erling Haaland (left) joins the celebrations after playing a crucial part in the move for Jack Grealish (centre) to score Manchester City’s second goal. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Arsenal responded well, the equaliser arriving before half-time. Eddie Nketiah won the penalty. Bukayo Saka, who was excellent all night, buried it. Coming back into this game against the tide was a feat in itself for Arsenal. But here they were faced with a version of Haaland who seemed to grow through this game, helping to make City’s second for Jack Grealish, and ending the night as its dominant figure.
When City stumbled in January it was all too easy to suggest Haaland-ism was the problem. This team has spent six years playing without a fixed attacking point. It was always going to take time. Adversity, bile and theatrical victimhood seem to have helped bring some clarity in mid-season. Cleaner lines. Haaland-age City. Pep-Ball with a bludgeon as well as a quiver of arrows. This felt like something closer to an end point.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
