For four straight days, Suleman ‘Solly’ Adam and his family walked through the Thar desert. Scorching sun over their heads, roasting sand under their feet. Solly, just 7, held his mother’s hand. His sister, 4, was perched on his father’s shoulders. This was 1952 and Solly’s post-partition horror story was about his family getting picked by the police from a village in Gujarat, handcuffed through the journey, released near the newly-marked border and asked to find their way to Pakistan.
Puzzled over where they were headed, Solly was worried if he would be able to play his favourite sport — cricket — ever again.
After a tough childhood, a teenager Solly, boarded a ship to England with just three pounds on him. With time, the family that braved the draining desert heat would settle in the land of lush green meadows, incessant rains and a scenic countryside. They would own several homes, petrol pumps, super markets and never missed a chance to play cricket. The boy, once homeless, would end up providing accommodation to countless visitors, mostly players in Yorkshire to play club cricket. Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan would be his close friends.
“I truly believe that difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations and cricket has taught me a number of life lessons,” Solly, now 80, tells The Indian Express as he details his eventful life-story — one that took him from his birthplace Simlat in Gujarat to Pakistan’s Karachi and now Leeds in Yorkshire.
Suleman ‘Solly’ Adam with his collection of cricket bats. Credit: Special Arrangement
Solly has guests these days. Two days before the opening India-England Test, Gavaskar is at his home. The legend has been to this address many times before but Solly sounds excited on the phone, his voice getting drowned by the lively chatter of a family gathering in the background. “Sunil has told me ‘I am here and we will be meeting through the Test’. I am very pleased,” Solly says.
Yorkshire, Tendulkar story
There is another reason for this being special. It happens to be the inaugural Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy series. Solly and Sachin Tendulkar go back a long way. It was he who convinced both Yorkshire and Tendulkar to sign a deal in 1992 that resulted in the Indian great becoming the first-ever foreigner to call Headingley his home.
Solly vividly recalls the drama that went into Tendulkar making history at Yorkshire. It started with Solly getting to know that Yorkshire had signed the Australian pacer Craig McDermott as its first overseas player. A few days later, he heard on the telly that McDermott was injured. Solly, always the enterprising businessman, sniffed an opportunity.
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“The minute I came to know, I ran to the Yorkshire club. I asked them, ‘Why don’t you sign an Indian or Pakistani? I argued that since Yorkshire has this large Asian diaspora, they could consider Tendulkar or Javed Miandad. That was the time the great Don Bradman had said that watching Tendulkar bat reminded him of his own batting. After two to three hours, they were convinced, they opted for Tendulkar,” says Solly. But, there was a problem.
The Yorkshire officials, insulated from the outside world, had no clue about how to reach Tendulkar. Pat came the reply: “That you leave it to me”.
Solly had hosted Tendulkar when he played club cricket in England. He was also a special attendee at Solly’s son’s wedding. When the Yorkshire offer came up, Tendulkar was in Australia, in the middle of a Test series. When Solly called, Tendulkar, stretched by the demands of international and domestic engagements, wasn’t sure. Now, Solly can talk. His ever-expanding business empire was because of his talent as a deal-maker. “I told him that he was young and he could do it. Later I asked my friend Sunil (Gavaskar) to talk to Tendulkar. While playing for Somerset, Sunil had benefited. Finally, Tendulkar was convinced and history was made,” Solly says.
Part-time jobs for cricketers
Once in Leeds, Sollybhai’s residence would be Tendulkar’s second home, where the dining room would always have piping-hot Indian meals. Since the time Solly was an active club cricketer, the doors of his house were open for cricketers from India and Pakistan. Generations of Indian cricketers from Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Chandrakant Pandit, Sanjay Manjrekar, Abey Kuruvilla, Sairaj Bahutule, Mohammad Kaif, Wasim Jaffer have savoured his hospitality. Conservative estimates by his cricketer friends put the count of players he has hosted at home to over 400 through the years. Not just stay and meals, Sollybhai would also arrange part-time jobs for players so that they could earn on non-match days. Many would work at his petrol pump and super markets.
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“At one point, there were 9 cricketers in the Indian team who had benefited from the English stint I had arranged for them. I was not an agent, I was someone who wanted to help cricketers,” he said. The players recognized this and they saw Sollybhai as their benefactor, well-wisher and also their Man Friday.
And that is why Gavaskar had called Solly when faced with a desperate situation during a tour to England. The two had become friends by a simple Solly gesture. He offered the Little Master a samosa during an England tour.
“During those days, between Test matches the touring team would play against county sides. So in one such tour game, they lost to Yorkshire. The manager of the team was very angry and he said no to wives staying in the team hotel or traveling in the coach,” recalls Solly.
“That was the time, they used to get three pounds as daily allowance, if they booked a hotel room for their spouse it was going to cost them a pound. So Sunil called me and said, ‘There’s any chance the cricketers’ wives can stay at your place? I said ‘yeah, no problem’.”
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It was the struggles in Solly’s early life and the help he received from unexpected quarters that made him assist those in trouble. At the start of his new life in England, Solly would be a daily wager at a factory. His job was to wipe oil from machines. A habit of saving, saw him buy a taxi and from there he graduated to becoming a motor mechanic. A slice of luck and financial help from friends and family resulted in him owning a petrol station and it was this that changed his life.
“Those days the petrol station in England would be open from 8 am to 6 pm. We started doing it from 7 am to 10 pm. We also worked 7 days a week that no one did and we were open on Christmas day and Boxing Day too. Word spread soon, we had vehicles queuing. I made a lot of money and that changed my life,” he says.
His children now settled, a retired Solly can be found at his sports shop. He is still eager to help the needy and to narrate cricket yarns to anyone who lends an ear. Solly has seen it all but he still gets excited about his buddy Sunil in the commentary box calling an upcoming game where a young Indian will captain in his first Test for a Trophy named after another of his close friends, Tendulkar.